So last year I planted a bed of potatoes. Best season ever because the neighbor cut back the branches on their tree which gave the potato bed more light. Lots of spring rain... followed by lots of summer drought. When I went to harvest the potatoes, the ground was rock hard. Broke the tine off of a pitchfork trying to dig the bed. The taters were small anyway, so I said enough and said whatever might have grown could seed the bed this year.
Yesterday I cleaned up the fall leaves from the bed. As I raked the leaves off the bed, I saw a bunch of potatoes had sprouted as intended... However, a lot of the potatoes were on top of the ground. Not as in being dug up by animals, but right on top of the ground. They were not there last fall when I was harvesting or I would have picked them off the ground. Just wondering how the potato managed to move up the soil column. I shredded the leaves that were on the bed and put the shredded leaves right back on the bed to cover up the potato plants. Will add more later in the season as the plants grow.
