potatoes growing from 2 feet depth and thriving!

Lazy gardener tip I received today, this guy had buried some compost down under 2 feet of soil and there were some potatoes in there.  They had a massive harvest!  I think this may be common, but I've never heard people suggest a planting depth that far down.

When he was digging through the ground the stem just went and went and went, so I think he was saying he found the potatoes down all the way to a depth of 2 feet, it wasn't that a critter moved the potatoes up higher, they were actually growing that far down.

Your post reminds me of an unresolved question I've had on potato varieties.

Determinate versus indeterminate growth, the second type giving more potatoes per plant.

I tried researching a few years back, reading The Complete Book of Potatoes by Hielke de Jong, where it was mentioned once, but not ever again.

Just googling now, I found

https://homeguides.sfgate.com/potato-bag-gardening-35134.html

Determinate potatoes are considered fast-growing and produce tubers at the soil depth just above where the seed was planted. Indeterminate potatoes are classified as slow-growing and produce tubers all along the stem where soil exists.  Indeterminate varieties are preferred for bag growing so the yield is worth the effort.

And a brief list:

Determinate varieties that work well for a short growing season or a small yield include "Red Pontiac," "Chieftain" and "Yukon Gold" potatoes. Indeterminate varieties include "Russet Nugget," "Nicola," "German Butterball" and "Elba" potatoes.

I've had a "perennial" potato patch now for about 5 or 6 years, I planted them that long ago, and I never was able to find them all I guess, lol. Every year now I get a new crop of them and many are located really deep. The do better if you hill them up, so instead, I dug really deep, and kept covering them until the ground was level again as they grew. I wanted to rotate different crops in that spot, but since they keep coming back every year, I just let them be. Some of the best potatoes I've had. I've got 2 varieties in there, red and Irish cobbler potato.