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My spuds (earlies) are coming through nicely:), also one main!,  when should i start earthing them up to get more spuds as ive been told this helps, any help appreciated:)

I don't know if I did it right but I earthed them up a bit after planting and they have come through that so last night as I think we might be due frosts this week I covered them a bit more - trouble is I'm running out of earth in that bed to keep earthing up so I'm also interested in the answer!!   ???

I ran out earth last year so fleeced them.  Everyone else got caught by frost and I had the best plants on the site.  Didn't have eough fleece so also used bits of cardboard and plastic that I had spare.  Everything came through relatively unscathed - the leaves in contact with the fleece got slightly burned.

Keep earthing up - all but the top leaves. Unless frost is forecast, when you can cover them too.

So basically i dont cover the top leaves in soil just the stems ?

Hi Phil,

The growing plant needs the top leaves out in the air to photosynthesise
so it can make more stem so it can make more spuds. Just protect them if frost is due. If you have to use earth then the plant will cope anyway -better than being frosted.

Col

Well, what does this show us??

1. That I went straight out & did it! Thanks, Phil!
2. That the far end few, that the fleece didn't cover for part of the time, are some way behind.
3. That I need not have panicked when we had that long series of frosts, just after I was forced to plant on 16 Feb because the shoots were overlong.

rather than scraping round for more earth to scrape up over the plants, why not use grass cuttings? This has a triple purpose: it prevents light getting to the potatoes, mulches and composts (and forthly, it means I don't have to buy garden waste recycling bags - neither do my neighbours either!)

Excuse me shoving my nose in - but there is a theory that you don't HAVE to earth up. I tried it last year, and got about the same crop as the year before when I earthed up like mad.

Grass, MPhil? Fine if you have enough grass at the right time. But still can't give the same bulk as soil?

No earthing up, Chantenay? You were lucky not to get green potatoes? And it's more difficult for the tubers in solid ground that in the 'mound'?
Or you can use a plastic cover.

I use grass, but in vast quantities since I have it available. It's perfectly effective provided you really pile it on so the worms can't take it all down before the end of the season and leave the spuds exposed.

conventional wisodm is that the new tubers (that you want to harvest) will grow from the stem between the seed potato and the soil surface. so, plant deep, and dont earth up - or plant a bit less deep, earth up  etc - anything that makes the distance between your seed and the soil surface bigger.

plus of course the added benefits of frost portection and green potato prevention :D

after reading this thread, I believe I've planted my earlies a little too shallow, perhaps only 3 inches deep... will earthing up help provide more growing room for the potatoes?

thanks,
vaca

Indeed!

I find a lot of the tubers grow immediately under the mulch; this year I'm going to bury the stems in it by putting on several batches at they grow, and see if that increases the crop.

i have also run out of soil and have used grass cuttings.  have just left the tips of leave showing through in the day and cover again with grass in the evening. 

One learns every day - how does one 'run out of soil' if the rows are correctly spaced??

???

Maybe it's just me...perhaps I did it all wrong...

Dug trench and piled soil to the left.
Put spud in hole dug with trowel, covered it about 4-5 inches.
Dug trench and piled soil to the left etc etc

I now have piles of soil and rows with spuds in, lots of soil to earth up as we go.

Other people on my site have their spuds in neat, flat rows.

???

chacun a son gout - however you might spell that!!

if you don't have much room, you tend to put things a bit closer together, hence running out of soil in a raised bed, but i have made do with grass cuttings and all seems to be doing well.  i have done this for several years and always had a bumper crop.