earthing up potatoes, straw?

I think I'm right in saying that the main reason for earthing up is to stop any pots at the top from being exposed to the light or they will go green and be uneatable, so anything that cuts out the light will do. If you have no more soil to put on, you can use grass cuttings (not too much or it goes slimy), wood or paper shreddings, straw etc.

The question is, "do you actually need to earth up any more"?

Answer - I have no idea!! They seem to have quite a lot of stem exposed and they haven't flowered yet, so I didn't know if potatoes might be formed from the exposed stem yet.

I've done it by the way, put some posts around and plastic  and put two bales of straw in. I placed it carefully around each plant to try and cut out light, it seems to stay where it put so far!  It's will be interesting to see if I do get potatoes in the straw bit or just under the earth.

Are they earlies, lates, or something in between?

Certainly no point trying to keep earlies even partially buried now because they won't have time to produce any sizeable new tubers before you lift them, and it would be counter-productive anyway as it's the exposed foliage which produces the food to swell the spuds.

Using straw to mulch late varieties might be OK, but I'd be a bit concerned it may also create a slug refuge around them - if you are growing maincrop spuds IIRC there are members who do use straw for this purpose who may wish to advise...

After the final earthing up, I usually lay some grass cuttings over them as well. Yesterday, I harvested some broad beans, chopped up the pods and chucked then on as well. It will all rot down and put goodness in the soil when dug in after the spuds have been dug up.

JayG    I think that where I am it is still worth earthing up both earlies and second earlies as it will be some time before I
lift any spuds from the ground.       Those in the greenhouse however are ready now, just as well as I need the space.