Potatoes - Weeds or earth?

[JohnN]

My potato patch has a thick covering of small ground weeds which I was about to start laboriously digging up ... when ??!! If the thick weeds keep the light from the ground/spuds, just as earthing does, would leaving them in situ save me having to earth up? Or am I just being ridiculously lazy?!
John N

[Angi]

I guess you have to balance not doing anything with the fact that each weed is robbing your spuds of nutrients and water and also the fact that what are now small weeds may not remain so. If you're sure they're annual you could always cover them up with a thick mulch of compost, straw or similar.

[Mike Vogel]

This weekend I've been "earthing up" my spuds with straw or newspaper. I've also emptied a black "dalek", which I had begun to fill in the spring, and have been able to earth up a couple of rows with the contents. I've no idea how the spuds will turn out, but the beds will have a jolly good dose of compost.
mike

[oldherbaceous]

Dear JohnN, I think the other problem would be with all the weeds setting seed for next year.

Can you not just earth the soil up complete with weeds, this way you will bury a lot of the weeds, then just run the hoe down the rows a couple of times.