What the soils aren't telling you

Last harvest I pulled tubers about the size of my forearm.

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Not bad, but not as great as I had anticipated. But then I didn't question the method. It was firm good soil, I was watering it, I was spacing it right. It worked, so I didn't change it. You don't change a winning team right.

This year, the second months is almost over, I broke the ground a little differently. I dug deeper, I turned in more old manure, I let it sit for a few weeks before planting. The soil after that was a completely different texture. Dark, open, nearly spongy under my feet as I walked through the rows.

Last year, at harvest, I had to be careful not to split the tubers. They didn't grow straight down against resistance, they spread out wide and low as they had their way through the loose earth. A few were longer than my elbow to my wrist. The skin was clean
and the flesh too was dense as I cut into them.

And this is what stuck in my mind, a lesson well learned I must say. If I had been getting decent yields before I didn't think the method was flawed. Sufficient results can easily shut down your curiosity. The soil had been limiting the crop for years and the harvests were good enough that nothing made me question it. Cassava will produce under pretty bad conditions so it can make you think you're good at it.

_{Posted using SteemX}