Potatoes, how deep to "earth up" (cover)?

Hi! Growing my first potatoes this year, in SmartPot containers. I read that you're supposed to keep the plants covered with soil as they grow, to encourage more potatoes to grow from the stem. My question is: how much of the emerging foliage do I cover up as the vines grow? I've read everything from "cover completely" to "cover leaving some of the foliage showing."
Is there any definitive amount of stem to cover?
These are my vines this morning; they had reached 5-6 inches in height, so I covered them up but left 2-3 inches of stem and leaves out in the air.

Ideally you want a couple leaves showing so they can get sun and continue to photosynthesize.

Wow- I guess I need to cover more of my potato plants? This is my first year growing anything, so potatoes, like everything else, is new to me. I have been adding soil about once a week, but have been leaving 7-8 inches of the plant above ground. I will keep checking back to see what other people recommend. Thanks for asking the question CapeCodGardener!

Let them grow 6-8 inches and then cover all but approximately 2 inches, rinse, repeat till they are flowering or as high as you want to make your hill. Once they flower and the leave begin to brown your potatoes should be done.

Cape and JLEM Re growing potatoes in containers,
Go read this thread. It has ALL the answers to ALL the questions you have about growing those potatoes. And lemme know if I was right!

Also, there's a tag to it under VEGGIES:Potatoes under Leaves/Straw

http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/937306/

Thanks, Qinx, your advice is succinct and easy for a newbie to follow.
Gymgirl, that was a FASCiNATING thread about growing potatoes in all sorts of situations. I learned so much. My potatoes this year are in two 15 gal containers. . . but I am strongly attracted to growing them in straw bales.
Maybe I could just convert my entire front yard into veggies! So tempting.

Qinx,
I have a question regarding "hilling." I'm not understanding this concept well. If I have my vines coming up out of the leaves (I'll be using leaves when I plant my potatoes), wont it just be flat? Or does hilling mean I should make a sort of mountain (inverted "vee") shape when I pile in the leaves? Please try to explain

Yes, hilling will be an inverted "vee" or cone or mini-mountain or (you get the idea) as best as possible. It may look like a "n" or some other letter! lol

After planting in a few weeks, green foliage will appear, sooner, if you don’t cover the seed potatoes very deeply. When the foliage is six to eight inches tall, start adding soil, leaves, hay, whatever you are using as your growing media, adding it all around the plants almost to the top of the leaves. This is called hilling. Keep hilling every week or so until the plants are at least a foot tall and flowers start to appear.

Other methods include,

Garbage can growing - Imagine filling a garbage can a little on the bottom to start with and eventually the whole thing would be filled when done.

Old Tires - Start with a single old tire and start your potatoes in it. Once that tire is full, add another one on top and continue to fill, repeating 3-4-5 times or however tall you want your potato tire tower to be or when flowers appear.

If you are hilling/mounding with no container you are most likely going to have a flatter mound if the material you use flattens easily.

Traditionally, potatoes are started deeper in the ground with a trench and then as they grow, the trench is eventually filled in. Home gardening generally starts above ground or in containers and then builds a mound higher.

Link to traditional trench potato video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7l_DOlx1Uo&NR=1

Link to another video - 6 min long and slow to watch but the puppy is cute - http://www.bukisa.com/videos/92259_how-to-hill-potatoes

This google search will return hits on hilling potato videos - http://www.google.com/search?q=hilling+potatoes+video



This message was edited May 20, 2009 2:48 PM

Thanks, Qinx!