earthing potatoes?

hello again. i bought some grow bags purposlly for potoates and have planted the spuds and they seem to be doing fine now the problem is when do i put some more muck in and to what level of the plant ?

 

Carefully keep adding 'muck' (as long as it's not fresh muck) until it comes just under the leaves as the plant needs to see the sun to convert the rays into growth and later large spuds. Never cover the leaves, but keep a fleece close by in case of a late frost.

Cheers, Tony.

 

I always earth up so that just the highest two or three leaves per stem are exposed. That stops being practical once the plant gets to a certain height, but its a rule of thumb that has served me very well over the years.

 

Ok thank you very much

 

Not suite sure how you plan to do this with grow bags?

I would have cut the grow bags in half, stood them on end, and then planted the spuds towards the bottom and earthed up the half-bags as they grew.

If the grow-bags are flat I think it will be tricky?

 

I was wondering the same thing Kristen. I presumed that nosukcow had done the folding over trick. Cheers, Tony.

 

Here's a link you might find helpful: http://www.gardenersworld.com/how-t...tables/how-to-grow-potatoes-in-a-bag/257.html

 

Yes, I do that (except I use special bags, and large tubs, instead of compost bags for improved drainage), but the O/P's post read more to me as though the spuds had been planted IN a growbag, rather than using the compost FROM the growbag ... but hopefully I'm wrong and the O/P has done it as per your video.

 

I think they're the potato growbags that are showing their face nowadays, not traditional growbags.

 

Me again !

I always grow a few potatoes in large 30cm - 40cm pots and use a mix of home compost with some leafmold and cheapo growbag or multi-purpose comp.

I plant 8 or 10 large pots and each yields 1.5 - 2kg of spuds

Here's one I prepared earlier !




a-a

 

Ah ... not come across them, sounds like a commercialisationable (tm!!) opportunity though

 

whoops thought the thread had finished, the bags i have are purposlly for growing spuds in , i tok ya advice and just filled in up to the the bottom of the leaves , cheers for all feed back

 

Threads don't finish on Gardeners Corner

 

Just what I needed to know, been wondering for months!

"Surely you don't just bury them?!" hahaha

 

According to Thompson Morgan, they've done research that suggests that earthing up in the potatoe grow bags is a waste of time.

See here for more:
http://www.thompson-morgan.com/how-to-grow-potatoes-in-bags

I'm following their advice this year so I'll report back. I've never grown potatoes before so can't compare, but I'll see how many potatoes I get!