What are these things in my Potato Patch?

[Gary350]

My potato patch has something that looks like fingers growing up out of the soil. First time I saw these 3 weeks ago it looked like a hand burred in the soil with black fingers. There are about 90 to 100 of these fingers in the potato patch. They look like wood with a long wooden root that goes down deep into the soil. Most grow in groups of 3, 4, 5, and 6. They were not there when I planted the potatoes 3 months ago. Now they look like dead wooden fingers with dead wooden roots, they break like dead sticks.

I have potatoes. I harvested 2 and we had them for dinner. I planted Kinnebec.

[applestar]

What happened to your photo links? (I looked to see if they were Photobucket )

You are not the only one to find those, it seems. Definitely increases likelihood that these are fungus of some sort.

Subject: Hello from Montreal (what is this)

Hi From Montreal,

I grow mainly hot pepper plants in pots.

Just found this in my garden along my hedges and am not sure what it is, can someone identify it.

[jal_ut]

Gary, sorry, can't view your pictures.

[KitchenGardener]

Me neither, and I would love to, as those things look totally weird and creepy...

[Gary350]

Your pics look identical to mine. I use facebook to post pictures it is many times easier that photobucket and others. No reply in weeks I deleted all the pics. If I get too many pics on FB it is hard to find the good stuff so I delete a lot of stuff from time to time. I dug my potatoes up weeks ago. It was interesting potato patch was full of that stuff but other crops near the potatoes have done of that stuff in it. I wonder if that fungus stuff was promoted to grow by the potatoes? The stuff breaks like wood.