Earthing up or moulding potatoes
This year we planted three types of potato: first earlies, second earlies and maincrop potatoes. The variety chosen for first earlies was Home Guard. (1) These were chitted in a tunnel in February and planted out in a raised bed 30 cm apart on St. Patrick’s Day, the 17th March. They were initially earthed up when the stems were 15cm high.
The second earlies were called Orla. (2) These were planted five tubers to a bag in large recycled shopping bags on the 4th April after they were chitted indoors in March. The planting medium was 50% soil and 50% home-made compost.
The maincrop variety was a blight-free one called Sapro Mira. These were planted on the 16th April 45cm apart. Some were planted in a raised bed and some in refuse sacks with three tubers in each sack. (3a) (3b)
The Home Guards are now just over 30cm tall and were earthed up for the last time. These will be harvested in mid-June.
The Orla potatoes are 20cm tall and these were earthed up nearly to the tops of the bags. These will be harvested in July.
The Sapro Mira maincrop variety are c.15cm tall and they too were earthed up. The ones in the sacks were earthed up to nearly the tops of the stems. To facilitate this the bags were unrolled to make room for the growing mixture. This process will be repeated again. The maincrop will be harvested in September.