A thought on growing potatoes - re need to mound up?

[Samuel1988]

Evening all,

I dug the top soil layer and flipped the weeds upside down and ended up with making a nice mound which has started to brake down.

Anyways, I was thinking do I need to earth up the potatoes say if I plant the potatoes near the surface of the mound? Will they form more potatoes by using all the earth at the bottom of the mound (I hope this makes sense?). I have simply dug a hole put the potato in and some compost and I hope the roots will make their way down into the mound to make use of this space

Samuel

[Thelma Sanders]

Potatoes grow upwards rather than downwards, with potatoes forming alongside the stems as they grow towards the light.
The potatoes are earthed up so that you stop the light getting to the potatoes near the surface, and turning green

[Two_Sheds]

if I plant the potatoes near the surface of the mound?

It's a bit late to be planting potatoes ~ blight is due any minute

We don't usually plant into a mound in this country: it's something that's useful if your ground is liable to flooding, because mounds dry out really quickly, esp. if you've got sandy soil.

So no, I wouldn't.

[Samuel1988]

Ah got you - for some reason in my mind I thought they grew as an offshoot from the roots.

The area I was planting gets really clogged up during periods of prolonged rainfall so I thought making a small mound may help reduce any problems of rotting. Its a learning curve anyway!

I thought giving it a try considering we are apparently 4+ weeks 'behind'. I have just read about potato blight - do you think its worth just removing the planted potatoes as any success seems unlikely?

[rustylady]

Now you've planted them I would leave them. You may get a crop and the foliage will help shade out weeds.