Let me preface this by saying that I have grown potatoes before, just never this many. It's always been easy with no surprises lol...
I planted a 6x4' box of 3 different types of potatoes. I know I overcrowded them.
They grew into a beautiful, bushy forest of potato foliage.
After a certain point, however, they started falling over and growing sideways.
: I honestly don't know if something fell on them -- one afternoon there was suddenly a huge flat spot in the middle of the patch, with the plants on the edges still upright. Or if they just collapsed under their own weight.
I was worried that the bent plants might die, but they didn't -- they just started growing vertical again from the tips, so now at a 90 degree angle.
Eventually, probably due to overcrowding, the whole patch escaped the box. The plants went pretty much vertical from their base, to about 2' outside the box, then vertical from there for another good 2-3'.
I was just having a good look at them, culling some broken and dying and rotting vines (trying to figure out if there's some blight or some other cause), and I was just noticing how enormous some of the plants have gotten. They're trying to invade and are surrounding the neighbouring box. Taking into account the horizontal and vertical growth, some are 4-5' long.
My potato plants in the past have always pretty much just grown straight up, and they certainly never reached 4'! I'd also never have considered them 'vines' but these plants do resemble vines more than bushes.
Is this an effect of overcrowding? Is it unusual?
I planted a 6x4' box of 3 different types of potatoes. I know I overcrowded them.
They grew into a beautiful, bushy forest of potato foliage.After a certain point, however, they started falling over and growing sideways.
: I honestly don't know if something fell on them -- one afternoon there was suddenly a huge flat spot in the middle of the patch, with the plants on the edges still upright. Or if they just collapsed under their own weight.I was worried that the bent plants might die, but they didn't -- they just started growing vertical again from the tips, so now at a 90 degree angle.
Eventually, probably due to overcrowding, the whole patch escaped the box. The plants went pretty much vertical from their base, to about 2' outside the box, then vertical from there for another good 2-3'.
I was just having a good look at them, culling some broken and dying and rotting vines (trying to figure out if there's some blight or some other cause), and I was just noticing how enormous some of the plants have gotten. They're trying to invade and are surrounding the neighbouring box. Taking into account the horizontal and vertical growth, some are 4-5' long.
My potato plants in the past have always pretty much just grown straight up, and they certainly never reached 4'! I'd also never have considered them 'vines' but these plants do resemble vines more than bushes.
Is this an effect of overcrowding? Is it unusual?
