I am trying to “bank up” my potatoes, but with the recent torrential rain they have *shot* up - when I try to cover them up it seems to be breaking the leaves - and it’s going to take tons and tons of compost to do them all. I’m not sure I’m doing it right - should the leaves be completely covered - do I have to do it until I pull them up? I’m not even sure what questions I need to be asking!

The potatoes never get any sun if that’s any help - they are shaded by walls on three sides.

What about covering them with something other than soil?

Angie

You don’t have to completely cover them and don’t worry about breaking the leaves; they are pretty hardy. None of us have Titchmarsh gardens. Just heap up as much soil as you can around them and don’t worry about them. Earth them up two or three times throughout the season as best you can.
No sun? Have you grown them successfully before? Interested to hear all about your experiences on a sunless plot

The thing about potatoes is they are great for conditioning the soil so you can plant fussier crops afterwards, and earthing them up is part of the process. As you lift the surronding soil it will be breaking down to make a ‘fine tilth’ (lovely term). Don’t worry about adding loads of compost, the spuds are fixing nitrogen in the soil as they grow. I always lift the soil from each side of the row to form trenches, this helps divert the rain down to the tubers as well. If it’s really wet, like now, soil doesn’t like being shifted too much, so it’s probably easier to wait until it gets more manageable, gardening shouldn’t be toilsome! One of the functions of earthing up is to keep all your tubers away from your light so they don’t turn green and inedible, that’s the main thing to keep an eye out for. We have sometimes used a layer of cardboard to help with this when earthing up has been impractical. Don’t worry too much about losing the odd leaf, they’re hardy things potatoes.
It’s also possible that they’re sending out long shoots in search of light if they don’t get any direct sun, they do appreciate a bit of sunshine and will get ‘leggy’ if they’re short of it. Mind you, this lovely rain has made everything explode hasn’t it! Hope that’s a bit of help and not just going through everything you already know, xx L

No, haven’t tried before - I just didn’t think potatoes needed a lot of light, as they are earthed up! We shall see! So I need to earth up around the stems not the leaves then?

Eventually they will be big, bushy, leafy plants sprouting out of the ridge. The earthing up I just do once I plant them and a couple of times in spring. After that they just get growing, and as said before just make sure no potatoes poke out the sides.

TBH, I never really bother with earthing up.  I do when I plant them, then I leave them do there thing and we always have bumper crops.  they only get sun for a part of the day and they still do really well every year.

We have planted potatoes (and everything else)for the first time this year too. My dad came over to help me as i have no clue at all. All mine inc potatoes are in pots (large). His advice and that of my newly aquired books are to cover (leaves) with soil as soon as they pop their leaves up . do this two or three times then just leave them. In pots you plant them half way down the pots and add soil when the leaves come up until you are at the top of the pot and then just leave them. Mine are coming up great. Quite proud actually as everyone said you wouldn’t be able to grow carrots, pots, caulis etc in pots . Mine are also all in a greenhouse.

I avoid the whole (tedious to me) earthing up process by planting the potato deeper in the first place, I plant in trench 5” deep and leave until they are ready to be harvested.  We always have a good crop.

You could use grass cuttings, straw, hay or compost to cover.

I don’t earth ours up either. I understand that if you did go to the bother you may get higher yields - but I too tend to plant deeper and on the whole take the ‘work smart, not hard’ approach. (Earth up two or three times…woah…Life is too short, methinks).
All best
w.w.