Potato logic

[obsessed]

Ok so.... if I am constantly covering them up when are they going to flower?

 

[CARS]

Constantly covering them?

The only thing you want to keep covered is the potatoes themselves. If they are exposed to light they turn green in color and are no good.

You can add dirt early on to give them more soil to grow tubers in, but if you are adding dirt every week to the plant... I think you may have received some bad info. They are really not alot of work to grow.

I may be wrong but I stick them 2" to 3" in the ground, cover them with straw and water occasionally. If they were any more work, I know where I can buy 'taters for about .20 a pound.

 

[Beekissed]

You let them grow a little, cover them up to right under their leaves and let them continue to grow......then repeat the process. Don't cover the leaves, but do hill right up under them.

 

[Broke Down Ranch]

So I planted my potatoes in an old bathtub. I put about 1" of dirt on the bottom. Then I covered them about 1" deep. As they have sprouted and the tops of the potatoes plants are coming above the dirt I cover them again. I keep doing this until the bathtub is full then I let the potatoes just finsh doing their thing.

This is my first time to "do" potatoes but so far they are growing like crazy and I have to cover the plants every few days with more dirt. So far the tub is over half full and it was a garden-tub size tub! I will let ya'll know how they do when I harvest them

 

[smom1976]

you could have put this in that big ole long potato thread..

But for your question.. I dont know.. I gathered that the plants would just brown and die off? That is how you know that the potatos are done growing..

I bet that they will eventually stop growing and then flower..
watch it will be right after I have hilled them a whole bunch.. and they will be these little bitty plants..

here is a pic of "covering up potatos"

I bet that one that crawled out the side is going to flower.. :/

 

[Purple Strawberry]

So I planted my potatoes in an old bathtub. I put about 1" of dirt on the bottom. Then I covered them about 1" deep. As they have sprouted and the tops of the potatoes plants are coming above the dirt I cover them again. I keep doing this until the bathtub is full then I let the potatoes just finsh doing their thing.

This is my first time to "do" potatoes but so far they are growing like crazy and I have to cover the plants every few days with more dirt. So far the tub is over half full and it was a garden-tub size tub! I will let ya'll know how they do when I harvest them

Do you remember how long it took to have the them sprout?

 

[vfem]

Mine took a couple weeks to sprout... but then took off like CRAZY growing. Leaves everywhere! I'm shocked. I just hilled them up with dirt yesterday. I wanna say it was about 3 weeks to see the sprouts... but I've covered every 4-5 days since then. So far like twice!?

When did you plant yours?

(I'm just going to hill them until I'm out of room for the dirt leaving about 2" on top of the bucket I'm using.)

 

[Broke Down Ranch]

So I planted my potatoes in an old bathtub. I put about 1" of dirt on the bottom. Then I covered them about 1" deep. As they have sprouted and the tops of the potatoes plants are coming above the dirt I cover them again. I keep doing this until the bathtub is full then I let the potatoes just finsh doing their thing.

This is my first time to "do" potatoes but so far they are growing like crazy and I have to cover the plants every few days with more dirt. So far the tub is over half full and it was a garden-tub size tub! I will let ya'll know how they do when I harvest them

Do you remember how long it took to have the them sprout?

Mine also took about 4-5 weeks. But I didn't let the eyes get started before getting them planted then we had a very hard freeze so mine had a hard time getting started. But they are going CRAZY now. When I cover them, I cover them COMPLETELY, no leaves visible. With about 1" dirt. I covered them yesterday for like the 5th time. Looked today and they are ALREADY above the dirt. So it looks like I'll be covering mine every couple of days.

 

[CARS]

I'm still confused. Why do you keep covering them?

I planted mine a few inches under the soil and then covered them with straw to keep any late frost off of them. If I see any tubers exposed I will cover them, but why mound up the soil so much??

 

[vfem]

After SEVERAL conversations on here (do a potato search on the forum) recently we all found a lot of great feedback about hilling and mounding the plants. Showing it is allowing for more room to grow more potatoes and forcing a larger yeild at harvest. Not that it is the only way, just a way to try to get more from one plant.

I'm thinking it has to do with the same theory as plucking off the first leaves of a tomato spourt and burying 80% down to force more roots. As its making the potato plant get taller its giving more root space and openings to develop more and larger potatoes.

How exactly it really works, I don't know... we did find lots of info and shared links from people in those previous posts to what they did, what kinds they did it to, and the amount they yielded from the harvests.