patandchickens
Deeply Rooted
The idea is this:jackiedon said:
Potatoes form from roots grown along the stem. Potato (also tomato, pepper, eggplant) plants will root from their aboveground green stem if dirt is hilled up around it.
Thus, you are TRYING to kill those initial leaves by burying them in dirt (they will peacefully wither away, and roots will grow from that part of the stem, to create potatoes later on); just you don't want to bury a leave until a new one has formed at the growing tip to replace it.
(If you covered the entire growing plant with dirt, it would have no access to sunlight and the whole thing would die. If you don't keep up with the hilling-up, and let the shoot grow too long with too many leaves, it doesn't work right either.)
There is really no point in covering/uncovering things daily, honest. (Unless there is a frost concern, but that'd be more of a one-off thing). Either a leaf is ready to be hilled over, or it isn't.
Does that help any?
Good luck, have fun,
Pat
