Kitchen Garden Forum

Hello all!

I am wondering whether i need to earth up my potatoes later! considering the way i have gone about sowing them. I will describe in detail the way in which i sowed them.

1)I ploughed the plot in january.And put down FYM on the potato area.
2)I put down chicken manure pellets and seaweed dust in march.
3)The manure had not broken down very much (still in clumps on top of ground),So i rotavated potato area to incorporate FYM primarily.
4)I made drills using tractor and drill making plough.
5)6th of April i sowed potato seed tubers using a Bulb-planter 4-6 inchs deep. (very easy i found, wont go back to trench method)
6)today i put down mypex black woven fabric along the troughs and up the sides of each drill.This is to act as a weed suppressent. So basically only a thin strip of earth was left visable at the peak of each drill. I also put newspaper over the peaks, which is tucked under mypex, and watered to help keep it from blowing away; by creating a paper mache effect. I will probably remove this later when spuds pop up.

The question i have is:

Do you think i need to earth up poatoes at a later stage or not?

considering that the potaoes will be under mypex; greening of spuds i really cant see being an issue.

I have gone to quite a bit of effort organising my potato crop, and am trying to grow a good quality/yield crop.

does earthing up increase yields?

Some people grow potatos under black polythene. i never have done. these people i understand don't bother earthing up. am i right?

Any opinions or advice please.

I was planning to lift the mypex, so as to earth up potatoes once they were up.and then put it down again after. but am i just making unneccessary work for myself??

No one with any advice?

Bye the way, the newspaper didn't work. got blown away.

But i have done similar thing with newspaper with parsnips and leeks. though i used straw instead of mypex. The mypex lifts a little at the edges with winds, thus wind gets a hold of the newspaer. doesn't with straw! just passing on information based on my experience.

Earthing up does allegedly increase the yield, but not sure how you can earth up the way you have done your spuds, but you can earth up, you should, also if we get a frost you still have some shoots under the soil, allowing a greater chance of grow back after the frost if we have one.

Personally I think you are making work for yourself.

You have a rotovator, yes?

Ensure that your inter-row spacing leaves enough width at the bottom of the "trough" to run the rotovator up between the rows without cutting the bottom off the slopes. Then you can control weeds and ensure easy second earthing up.

Half the point of earthing up is to prevent the growing spuds getting sunlight on them and thus going green and poisonous.

Lawn-mowings sprinkled along the peaks then watered lightly are much less likely to blow away.

Hi Dewwex

I am not growing spuds this year - sadly run out of space again - need to expand. (i hope to pop a few tubers into a spare bed in July for a christmas special) But.. my understanding is that earthing up is not just to prevent greening of new tubers near the surface but to bury more stem beneath the soil therefore more layers of new tubers from the stem.

I think of Tomatoes in the same way in that i bury the stems as far as i can get away with on each repotting and at final planting out remove the last couple of leaves so i can get more stem into the ground. The stem produces more roots making a more robust plant and new stems for later in the season to relpace the old stem when i have to cut it down having grown over the poles.

You seem to have gone to a lot of trouble with your potatoes this year - there must be method to your madness or madness to your method . Why not test the method earth up some and not others and see what results you get. I would hate to go to so much trouble and not know if it produced a better result.

My neighbour always grows spuds and has a pretty odd method. She earths up by cutting turfs off the surrounding area to the row and heaping it, green side down (weeds the lot) over the potato rows. Curious thing i've never seen that before.

What kind of scale are you growing on - sounds huge?

In reply:
I used a rotavator on the back of a tractor. I am fortunate that my uncle was a commercial cauliflower/cabbage grower back in the 80's. So i have kinda inherited alot of his old machinery. Unforunatly my uncle died three years ago, just when i was getting into vegetable growing. So never got the chance to pick his brain.

I don't have a small hand-held rotavator. Putting down the newspaper part, was a complete waste of time, tedious job anyhow! We live and learn. But i am very happy with the Mypex between the drills.

The reason why i went this road was that last year my spuds took ages to come up, ground was not prepared as well as this year, and was generally colder. it ended up a failed crop. but this was quite a normal story here in Ireland. we got had very wet May, and dry June. i also had a big water leak onto my potato plot in May. Weed issues too.
this year i cant believe my eyes. spuds sown on 6th of april are up on the 19th. 'duke of york' and 'lady christl'. Sante starting to come up on 22nd. 'Pink Fir' and 'Sarpo Axona' now coming through.

The Mypex is held down with timber logs. works well. if you have a round logs and say cut in halfs or quarters. the natural curvature of the blocks fits the drills nicely to keep down the Mypex. spaced about 10 ft along the row. So it will be quite easy for me to lift the mypex and put down again. Luckly i have the drill plough, so if i tilt this forwards on the tractor, its excellent for banking up spuds without compressing the drills.

I have a real adversion to weeds and weeding in general. So have gotten into various forms of mulching quite a bit. I personnally prefer taking extra time at planting too mulch etc. I like doing as many jobs all in one go so to speak. Hate having to go back and fix that, weed that, sends my head in a spin!! But thats my bit of madness!

So I think i will do the banking up! Will leave a little just to test!

I repeat:I would defo recommend the bulb planter for sowing.

thanks for advice on using Grass as mulch with potatoes. I have also heard that putting a bit of mowwed Grass down with the Tuber at sowing time can reduce SCAB.