Earth up Potatoes

The Grow Up team

Ensure a healthy, high yield of lovely spuds

Why earth up potatoes?

The beloved potato is a staple of many of our favourite dishes and can be a great addition to your garden. However, if you want to get the best yields possible, you’ll need to know how to earth up your potato plants.

Earthing up is a simple process that involves mounding soil around the base of your potato plants as they grow. In this blog post, we’ll take a look at the steps involved in earthing up potatoes so that you can get the most out of your crop.

How do I earth up my potatoes?

1. Wait for the plants to grow

The first step in earthing up potatoes is to wait for the plants to grow. You’ll want to give your potato plants time to establish themselves and develop a good root system before you start earthing up.

This usually takes around 4-6 weeks after planting, depending on the variety of potato and the weather conditions. We’ve previously talked about different varieties of potato in our chitting blog.
If you need to grab any last minute bags to plant, we recommend something like this.

2. Prepare the soil

Once your potato plants have started to grow, it’s time to prepare the soil. You’ll want to loosen the soil around the base of the plants with a hoe or garden fork, being careful not to damage the roots. This will make it easier to mound soil around the plants later on.

Earthing up...

3. Mound soil around the plants

Once the soil is prepared, it’s time to start earthing up. Take a hoe or garden fork and gently mound soil around the base of the plants, being careful not to bury the leaves or stems. You’ll want to leave about 10cm of the plant above the soil to allow it to continue to grow.

4. Repeat as needed

As your potato plants continue to grow, you’ll need to repeat the earthing up process. Typically, you’ll want to do this two or three times throughout the growing season.

This will help to keep the soil around the plants loose and prevent the potatoes from becoming exposed to sunlight, which can turn them green and make them bitter.

Reap the rewards of earthing up...

5. Harvest your potatoes

Once your potato plants have finished growing and the foliage has died back, it’s time to harvest your potatoes. Simply dig up the soil around the base of the plants and carefully remove the potatoes. Be sure to handle them gently to avoid damaging them.

Earthing up potatoes is a simple process that can help you get the most out of your potato crop. It will ensure that your potato plants stay healthy (not green and poisonous!) and produce a good yield that will last all year, so that there are always enough spuds for everything from Sunday roasties to healthy summer salads.