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  • From: Road's End Farm <organic87 AT frontiernet.net>
  • To: Market Farming <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] Case of the Strange Walking Potatoes
  • Date: Wed, 9 Jul 2008 10:35:46 -0400


On Jul 7, 2008, at 11:21 PM, Roger & Carolyn Harvey wrote:

How intriguing! Any chance she could mount one of those wildlife cameras
to find out what's going on? They work on movement, so should be able to
capture something.

Carolyn in Missouri


Unfortunately, neither she nor I has either the equipment to do that with, or the money available to buy the equipment. Unless we can come up with somebody to borrow the camera from, that's not going to happen. It is a good idea, though.

I gather nobody else has any other suggestions?

-- Rivka; Finger Lakes NY, Zone 5 mostly
Fresh-market organic produce, small scale



Road's End Farm wrote: [a couple of days ago]
(anybody remember the Case of the Strange Walking Sets from a couple
of years ago?)

A friend of mine just came by with a puzzle. She had recently, and
belatedly, planted some overly-sprouted potato sets. Most of them are
growing fine; some haven't leafed out yet. Something has been coming
by, each night, and digging up one potato. It's always one of the ones
that haven't leafed yet. It's always only one potato. The next day, my
friend replants it; the next night, the same one gets dug up again.
After two or three replantings, the dug up potato not only gets dug
up, but disappears; and whatever it is moves on to another potato; not
the next one in the row, but another one that hasn't leafed yet. So
far, this sequence has continued through about three potatoes.

The potato isn't just pulled up, because the hole it was in is always
dug out larger than the potato piece. They're planted in old rotted
hay; but there's old hay all over the place that isn't getting holes.
They weren't treated with anything, or fertilized in the planting
hole. Beans and squash growing in the same area have not been disturbed.

Anybody have any idea? My friend thinks "there's something out there
playing soccer with the potatoes by the light of the stars and the
fireflies; when they kick one potato / ball to pieces, they move on to
the next."





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