[Kleftiwallah]

Good morning everyone,
is earthing up spuds really necessary?
I ask because I cleared a spud bag of spuds (Red Duke of York) when the foliage died down and the only spuds I got were from the initial soil level (before earthing up).  There were no spuds in the earthing up levels

I realise that it is good practice to cover spuds peeking out on the surface but these gurt big mounds?

Cheers,  Tony.

[mumofstig]

Earthing up is to protect early sown spuds from frost and to protect the top tubers as they grow.
For earlies, maybe you need the earthing up at the start for frost protection, but no more after that as they tend not to grow far up the stem, just cover any that poke through.
Later varieties will carry on forming tubers up the stems 'til quite late in the year, so worth more earthing up more than the earlies IMO..

[jambop]

I did no dig spuds this year and they were a real revelation. I planted them just below the surface of the compost in the earth and let them grow. When it came time to earth up I experimented with two different ways. In one bed I earthed up around the base of the foliage with some compost... but nowhere near as much as I normally would if they were in soil and then added a good mulching with grass clippings. The other bed I did no earthing at all and just mulched . The results were great potatoes I could harvest by hand without any forking and the potatoes were perfect no scab and clean as a whistle. The bed without the earthing up did as well as the earthed up one and from a 3m x 1.5m bed with three rows of six plants I got about 25kg per bed which I was more than happy with. I would,on the basis of my experiment, recommend not earthing with soil but using a load of mulch if you have it.

[CHRISDONOHUE]

The ability of different varieties to grow potatoes at slightly different heights relative to the main stem means that earthing-up will vary in its effectiveness.   This year I earthed up well virtually all my potatoes - more than 6 varieties mainly main crop - but have discovered one of the seeds has burst through and has become green, whereas others have produced potatoes so low that it looks as if earthing up was not really necessary.

[Florablunder]

Glad you asked this question, I've just been wondering the same. I've always earthed up mine (only grow earlies) and each year worry that I haven't earthed them up enough - but then I also find it's harder to water them (water runs off the mound) and hard digging them up. I tried using the trench method this year after seeing Adam Frost do it on GW - and it's even harder finding and digging those pots out of the trench. I think next year I won't earth up as much and use fleece for frost protection instead. I think a lot of guide books give the same advice for all varieties of potato, so it's interesting that point about earlies.

[Kleftiwallah]

Good afternoon everyone,
 update,  today I have covered the whole bed (18 tubers) in carboard (after watering well), cutting 4" holes where the spuds are showing through.  Hopefully this will keep the weeds down and the ground moist.

Cheers,  Tony.

[Perthshirelady]

I have used the no-dig method for the past three years with good results - with one caveat: more slug damage. I am finding a lot more slug and millipede damage on my spuds.  I plant second earlies and maincrops as it’s not worth trying earlies here, we are too high and too frost prone early in the season.
I earth up once then just check top up occasionally if I see spuds poking through. 
Any good methods of keeping slugs off?

[jambop]

I have used the no-dig method for the past three years with good results - with one caveat: more slug damage. I am finding a lot more slug and millipede damage on my spuds.  I plant second earlies and maincrops as it’s not worth trying earlies here, we are too high and too frost prone early in the season.
I earth up once then just check top up occasionally if I see spuds poking through. 
Any good methods of keeping slugs off?

I use slug bait and I am not ashamed to say that we have some really lovely big snails, some would say eaters . What I found this year was that I grew the spuds as normal and applied slug bait and then after I applied my grass clippings mulch and spread a few slug pellets I had absolutely no problem with slug damage at all but did see a lot of dead snails on the surface. The snails seemed more interested in the mulch than the spuds. It was my first year though perhaps I was just lucky