Comments on: Early to rise: Ratte potatoes

By: Matron

Matron — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 07:39:28 +0000

I always earth up as they grow. I never completely cover the tops because they need some daylight on the top leaves to keep growing. If you keep burying them in the dark the plant is put under too much strain to keep growing up without getting any energy from the sunlight. I earth them up to within about 2″ of the top and then wait for them to grow another few inches then earth them up again.

By: sarah hammond

sarah hammond — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 10:23:10 +0000

i earth up gradually… although this is my first year so lets see what kind of results i get.

By: VP

VP — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 09:19:45 +0000

In one go or not at all – my soil’s so heavy and sticky (not well worked yet) that it’s concrete often at planting time, so I do what I can do. It’s certainly concrete afterwards, so there’s absolutely no chance of earthing up gradually.

I’m also trying the bag method for the first time this year and I will be adding compost to those as I go. It’ll be interesting to see the results later.

By: Soilman

Soilman — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 06:36:17 +0000

That’s interesting… I’ve never felt the need to add slug pellets to my spuds. Sure, they get a few slug holes here and there (or at least, the maincrops do), but never enough to seriously damage the crop. Am I just incredibly luck with my soil?

By: Cazauxs Food Factory

Cazauxs Food Factory — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 21:37:55 +0000

Trench, wait for sign of life, watch em get to 6″ tall, earth up so you cant see them, water water water, wait again until 6″ tall, add slug pellets and earth up again and just water whenever every time you have the opportunity.

Thanks for your advise on caulis last time, I wrote about them in my last post.

Still no heads but I have the bagpipe music ready just in case.

Rgds,

Cazaux

By: Rampant_Weasel

Rampant_Weasel — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 20:21:15 +0000

for me i dig a trench a spade deep and plant spuds in the bottom, then i earth up straight away.then i earth up again in 6 weeks.i do this because i work 12 hr night shifts and if a frost comes theres not really alot i can do about it.it also protects the seeds from the cold as i like to get them in as early as poss to give max growing time b4 blight strikes.
worked ok so far but only my 3rd year of growing

By: Simon Kirby

Simon Kirby — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 19:21:21 +0000

As I go, or not at all. Swift probably won’t get earthed up. However, I’ve managed to damage the haulms badly several times by earthing up gradually, but the soil in that bed is very lumpy and stony.

By: Suzanne

Suzanne — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 19:11:10 +0000

I’m going for the ‘earth em up as you go’ method. I feel that the ‘all in one go’ kind of limits them from the start…I’ll let you know when I compare them to my neighbours ‘bung em in and leave em’ results. But with earlies I’ve had really good results with earthing up so I don’t really see why maincrop should be any different…ok so my neighbours might have 25 years more experience than me but I’ve never been shy of flouting convention