Earthing up/blanching!

**Penellype** · 18-10-2016, 11:10 AM

Rhubarb? I thought the perceived wisdom was that if you cover the crown of a rhubarb plant with soil/mulch it will rot (mine did when I mulched it). Blanch by covering with a bucket yes, earth up no.

I'm very lazy when it comes to things like earthing up, so I plant my potatoes near the bottom of their buckets and fill the bucket with compost straight away. I then only add more if I can see potatoes near the surface later on.

I don't grow celery (don't much like it) or chicory (too bitter for me) and my spring onions would disappear completely if I tried to earth them up. Leeks are marginally better but I don't earth those up either - I don't mind eating them green.

**Jay-ell** · 18-10-2016, 11:18 AM

Sea Kale was traditionally covered with shingle to force it.
Sweetcorn can be earthed up to stop it falling over.

**roitelet** · 18-10-2016, 12:24 PM

Celery and chicory are earthed up to keep them white as are potatoes.

**Scoot** · 18-10-2016, 01:12 PM

Leeks. I don't earth up i just wrap toilet roll middles around them and then tape it up with a bit masking tape. When it starts to fall apart after a couple of months, i just replace it. Does the trick.

**BUFFS** · 18-10-2016, 02:06 PM

leeks i drop into their hole @ 8-10ins deep. spring onions are grown on a raised block of soil so the inners would be shielded from sunlight, giving them a long white stem. grown on the block system they really thrive , even round here where the way to tell the season is by how warm the rain is, celery is not a crop I bother with. tatties go into tubs on top of 6ins of seaweed and covered with compost, any crops needing earthing up are too much work as I tend to end up head first into the earth when I try any digging, so the topsoil gets a good minute inspection...

**Jungle Jane** · 18-10-2016, 04:16 PM

This year I've earthed up my carrots so they don't get green tops,it works well

Edit to add only about an inch,I don't cover the leaves....

**Chippy Minton** · 18-10-2016, 04:50 PM

Nothing I'm afraid

I create a ridge above the spuds as I sow them if that counts but otherwise I find far too many other things to do. I usually plant out about 150 leeks so quantity wins....

**Snadger** · 18-10-2016, 08:14 PM

Originally posted by veggiechicken View Post

Bear with me...............Shop bought spring onions have longer white bits than any I grow - which got me wondering whether they are "earthed up", "blanched" or the light is excluded in some way - as you can do with leeks.

The Big Question is -
What veggies do you earth up and why? What are the benefits ?

Off the top of my head, celery, potatoes, leeks, chicory, rhubarb.............there must be more

I think that the spring onions are so thickly sown that each plant blanches the other as they grow, similar to self blanching celery.

I have been known to earth up brassicas that have suffered from either wind rock,cabbage root fly or clubroot. The earthing up allows them to sometimes produce new roots from higher up the stem and gain enough nutrients and uptake enough water to survive.

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Earthing up/blanching!

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