Earthing up ...

[Sunbeam]

How high up my potato plants (main crop king eds) am I meant to earth up?? The plants are over a foot high thanks to all this super rain... I did use some compost & soil to earth them up but the heavy rains have washed them flat again...

[Geordie]

Hi Sunbeam

earthing up is usually done for two reasons:

To provide more stability for the growing plant....you know how windy it gets at your site.

I am assuming you have planted in rows or ridges. As the plant grows the tubers that are under the soil will grow outward and swell. If the tubers push out through the walls of the row they will turn green as the light hits them. Earthing up simply puts more soil onto the wall of the row to stop the light getting to the tubers.

[shine388]

i have a question related to earthing up...i put my potatoes in about a month and a half ago and have been earthing up when the plants were about 6 inches or more above the surface but now they have almost reached the tops of the compost bags theyre in and they still have a while to go before i can eat them so does it matter that i can only earth them up a few more centimetres then leave them until theyre big enough to eat? (i hope this makes sense)

[Geordie]

Shine, they will be fine dont worry

[shine388]

ok thank you! will they eventually stop getting taller and bushier or not?

[sewer rat]

Hi Shine
Your spuds will eventually stop growing upwards and outwards, but don't fret as they are a fairly large and bushy plant anyway - good groundcover as well as good for breaking up the soil and good tasting too !!

[Sunbeam]

I planted in rows, there is plenty of compost on top of the tubers -so fingers crossed all should be ok then-many thanks for the advice

[shine388]

thank you for answering that and thank you sunbeam for reminding me to ask my question!

[JennieAtkinson]

Glad you asked about earthing up Sunbeam, as I have a bit of a problem to.

I followed Lesley's advice of earthing on planting the tubers, but now find that the heads are coming out of the sides of the earthing up and not the top. Presumably they have followed the route of the least soil. So now I have a nice raised area of earthing up and spuds growing out of each side.

Should I leave them or try and earth them up again. I dont know whether there are any potatoes growing under the earthed up bit though.

[Lesley Jay]

Jennie it always happens to mine and I just leave them. Eventually you end up with big potato plants in straight rows. Everything grows from the seed potato which is in the centre of the row under the earthing up. Mine are always okay.

[JennieAtkinson]

Thats great news Lesley thanks. I took a bit of stick from a friend about earthing up at the beginning, so didn;t want her going told you so !

[garrett]

Is it too late to plant potatoes? I saw some seed potatoes for sale at the weekend.

Garrett

[Doggler]

I'm sure I read somewhere on the site that if you put them in the fridge you can plant out in September and have new potatoes for Christmas. Can anyone back me up or am I totally confused

[Lesley Jay]

You are quite right Doggler. The thread is in this section called New Potatoes At Christmas reply #3 by Pigletwillie. It is also in this months GYO magazine.