I've no idea what's going on here.
I have a raised bed 6'x4' of potatoes. They've been doing AMAZING. They're like 4' tall, bushy, just starting to flower (planted in late May), strong and healthy. A little crowded because more grew than I expected but seemingly fine.
This morning, doing my 'rounds', they were fine.
This afternoon, I was outside with my SIL, getting the BBQ ready, showing her my gardens since it had been a little while since she'd seen them... I glanced over beside the house where the potatoes are and was like ??? ... they seemed out of shape or something.
What it looks like, is it looks like something fell on them. They were all fallen over in one direction (like crop circles lol...) ...
None of them seemed to be actually broken. Maybe one or two... I tried righting them, just by lifting it straight up and pressing the soil around the base to support it standing again. It worked for some, but there are just so many of them, and some were really hard to even get to... and some just wouldn't stay upright. I know that I broke one or two (heard the stem snap) when trying to upright them.
They also seemed... I dunno... weak. Not really wilty, the leaves seem fine... just not as solid as I remembered them.
If something/someone did fall on them, are they likely to be permanently damaged? Will they straighten up, or just continue to grow in their half-fallen state now? Or is this a sign of some kind of weird disease?
I just have so many potatoes, and so much of my garden hopes are pinned on this beautiful patch of potatoes (as in, "if all else goes wrong, at least I have all these potatoes")... and they looked so grand and glorious, a great potato forest, and now they're just a mess.
I have a raised bed 6'x4' of potatoes. They've been doing AMAZING. They're like 4' tall, bushy, just starting to flower (planted in late May), strong and healthy. A little crowded because more grew than I expected but seemingly fine.
This morning, doing my 'rounds', they were fine.
This afternoon, I was outside with my SIL, getting the BBQ ready, showing her my gardens since it had been a little while since she'd seen them... I glanced over beside the house where the potatoes are and was like ??? ... they seemed out of shape or something.
What it looks like, is it looks like something fell on them. They were all fallen over in one direction (like crop circles lol...) ...
None of them seemed to be actually broken. Maybe one or two... I tried righting them, just by lifting it straight up and pressing the soil around the base to support it standing again. It worked for some, but there are just so many of them, and some were really hard to even get to... and some just wouldn't stay upright. I know that I broke one or two (heard the stem snap) when trying to upright them.
They also seemed... I dunno... weak. Not really wilty, the leaves seem fine... just not as solid as I remembered them.
If something/someone did fall on them, are they likely to be permanently damaged? Will they straighten up, or just continue to grow in their half-fallen state now? Or is this a sign of some kind of weird disease?
I just have so many potatoes, and so much of my garden hopes are pinned on this beautiful patch of potatoes (as in, "if all else goes wrong, at least I have all these potatoes")... and they looked so grand and glorious, a great potato forest, and now they're just a mess.
I had a flower bed that looked like that once. After a month watching these flowers fall over farther and farther I finally came outside one day at the right time and caught my cat laying in there. We had words! Of course if your potatoes were that big it would have to be a very big cat. Anyone come home drunk last night?
