Hilling up potatoes

[Annadl]

Hi all (I have a million questions today)

I can't find the fantastic post someone sent in ages ago with the photos of planting potatoes in pots.

What I am trying to find out is why do potato plants need hilling up once they are growing OK in the ground or pots.  How high does one go?  To the lowest leaf or more?

I am no where near that stage yet but wanted to know in advance ;D

The answer will help me decide whether I will plant them in pots or in the ground.

Thanks in advance
Anna from Downunder

[Annadl]

[hemajo]

Anna, I have just been reading an informative reply from (I think) john miller, who explains about rhizomes, tubers and earthing up potatoes.  It might be in the Edible Plants section.  Trouble is, you read so many, you can't remember which thread was which :)

[undercarriage plan]

Hey Anna! You earth the pots up to stop light reaching any of the tubers as they grow. If light does reach the tubers then it turns them green and makes the potatoes poisonous. I grow mine in the ground, and earth over the top growth as it appears, and then again, as long as tubers always covered you should be fine. But I've never grown them in pots, so not sure about that option. Good luck! Lottie  ;D

[Svea]

anna,

when you consider that all harvestable potatoes grow between the seed potato and the leaves, you can appreciate that the more earthing up you do, the more 'length' of main stem there is to make new potatoes.

apart from that, it also helps with frost control and that, early on. also, to stop the tubers getting any light and turning green and poisonous

my OH did the earthing up and when the pots were about a foot high he piled the earth on and only left the top 4 inches or so to poke through. they then grew again that much and he did earth them up again, to the same extent. (we did start them in a slight ditch)

my lottie neighbour does it differently. he made very large ridges on his plot and then planted the tubers really deep down - like a foot or so. same effect, different method. his plot looked like he had buried 5 corpses though :o ;D

[undercarriage plan]

You're sure it is pots he's burying.......... ;) Lottie

[Annadl]

hee, hee, hee

So does that mean you cover the leaves as well?

Anna from Downunder :)

[Annadl]

I found it.

http://www.allotments4all.co.uk/yabbse/index.php/topic,7174.0.html

Now I can't understand why you would harvest them so small (half the size of a hen egg)?

Couldn't they be grown bigger?

Anna from Downunder

[Svea]

i guess the point of potatoes inpots (the way he described it) was to have extra early baby potatoes. so the size should be fine for that purpose. if you want bigger potaotes, you use bigger pots/less seed tubers and let them grow for longer, i would guess.

why do you want to grow yours in pots? lack of space, or for early potatoes?

[Annadl]

Hi Svea

Lack of space

Anna from Downunder

[john_miller]

What I am trying to find out is why do potato plants need hilling up once they are growing OK in the ground or pots.  How high does one go?  To the lowest leaf or more?

  If you want to get the most potatoes from a limited space you should grow maincrop potatoes. If you want early potatoes then try first or second earlies. The latter will produce tubers when they have reached a certain size but maincrops only produce tubers in response to falling daylight. By getting the plants as large as possible before this happens the yield will be increased.
  As hemajo mentions the tubers are produced at the ends of underground stems (called rhizomes botanically). These rhizomes arise from wherever a buried leaf joint meets the buried stem. By increasing the amount of buried stem then more rhizomes will be produced. Carefully hilling up and good culture (water, fertiliser) will increase the amount of stem buried before the tubers are initiated. What you have to avoid doing though is burying the stems so as to cause etiolation- always leave the very top leaves showing.
  In a previous discussion someone (Gavin, I think) mentioned neighbours of his who regularly created hills nearly a metre deep (although I'm not sure of the point of that as I imagine the base would be to wide to maximise yield)!
  Growing well managed potatoes in deep containers can give very high yields while letting you use your garden space for something else. What I would suggest again though is that you only use containers that are approved for food use.

[bupster]

I went and looked it up:

Etiolation -

Botany. To cause (a plant) to develop without chlorophyll by preventing exposure to sunlight.

:)

[windygale]

Hi all, a few things that was forgotten, in the farming world, crops are planted in lines for speed and easy harvesting,
Earting up will help with surrporting the size of HAM or top growth of the plants, When the row is earthed up the roots will grow down in sted of growing out which then the roots grow more tubers,
hope this helps
windy

[Icyberjunkie]

Spuds in dustbins was my speciality until I got the lottie and that way you can do the same.  Place about 3 to 4 inches of compost in the bottom then your potato(es) the about another 6 inches of compost  on top.  When the top growth is about 6 inches high add more compost until just the top 2 or 3 leaves are showing.  Let them grow up 6 inches and ass compoast again.  Just keep going until the pot, tub or in my case dustbin is full!   I always grew earlies (Sharpes Express) cos that way I got more potatoes per season.

Iain

[Annadl]

So my next question is apart from the fertilizer at the bottom of the pot do you only use compost?  Is commercial compost OK or can I use mine which is mostly lawn clippings?  80% clippings, 20% food scraps.  (or a combination of both)?

Do you use any potting mix? ???

Thanks for your replies they've been fantastic.

Anna from Downunder :)

[Icyberjunkie]

Fertiliser!!!!  {GG}   I wasn't that upmarket!!    I literally just used growbags because they were only 99p each or as you are suggesting whatever was rotted in my compost bin which would be around a similar mix to yours.   Again I preferred compost but only because the potatoes were then really clean when I harvested them.  And talking of harvest, with the last crop I used to just pick up the dustbin and put it in the garage compost and all for storage and then just lucky dipped for potatoes until they were gone and then compost went on garden.    Might not be the best way but it seemed to work okay and I'm all for cheap and lazy gardening!!

[john_miller]

  Is commercial compost OK or can I use mine which is mostly lawn clippings?  80% clippings, 20% food scraps.  (or a combination of both)?

You want to mix in some material to aid drainage. Pure organic matter may turn into a slimy mass which will restrict air movement and retain too much moisture around the plants. The one time I did potatoes in containers (just as an experiment) I used a mix of garden soil (not recommended if you think you may have to move the containers at any point!) and well rotted FYM. I also applied liquid feed (seaweed based) regularly as potatoes are heavy feeders.

[Justin]

Hi,
I tried pots in pots this year due to lack of space (pre-allotment) through experimenting found the best way was to acquire the black pots that the florists/supermarkets use for cut flowers (no light penetration), punch some holes in the side 1 inch up from the base (creates reservoir to stop them drying out ideal if you can't water daily) put some clippings/rotting matter in the bottom then half fill with a 50:50 soil and growbag mix and plant 2-3 tubers per pot, as the stems grow top-up every week or so with more soil mixture till full to top, start to harvest as you need them. Have had continuous supply of fresh potatoes all summer, starting with little ones for salads and now bigger ones for baking. 
Justin.

[Annadl]

Today I checked the potatoes I started in the bottom of a compost bin 2 weeks ago and they have sprouted thin roots on the bottom, but no tubers have sprouted up top yet.  These are just in the top of 6 inch potting mix.

The ones I left chitting are doing quite well.

Today I prepared 2 huge pots with a bit of potting mix and half cup of fertilizer.  Tonight I plan to add an inch of my compost and plant my chitted spuds on the weekend.

Talk about experimenting!!!

Hopefully I'll have some produce to compare in the end.

Thanks again for your advice.

Anna from Downunder :)

[Annadl]

Update and good news!!

When I put the chitted potatoes in my pots I added a few in my compost bin & two weeks later I have potato plants in the compost bin 4 inches high :o :o ( I think these are the chitted ones because of the positions that they have come out).  I won't dare dig down now to check.

I am so excited.  A couple in the pots are just starting to show through!!  So I got the rest of my chitted potatoes that were still in the egg carton and popped them in a hoed area on the edge of my garden that had been fertilized ages ago.  And topped it with mounds of purchased compost.  ($6 Aust for 25 litres.)  I really need to let my home compost do it's thing for a while.  Now I just have to compost over my potato plants soon.

I am so chuffed.  Some things work out, some things don't (like my cucumbers!)

;D

[supersprout]

What a gorgeous garden Justin! :o ;D