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[Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>]

Hilling potatoes works. That's how we did it on the Wisconsin farm.  
Good exercise.

Hilling not only encourages production, it provides tuber protection  
from the sun, avoids that green surface we non-peelers worry about.  
Another way to do it, which I favor, is to simply pile on more mulch  
material.

How high or low potato pieces should be planted depends on local  
conditions, especially rainfall during the growing season, but also  
drainage. In a desert garden, dig a trench, toss in the spud pieces,  
cover with a bit of dirt, keep adding dirt or mulch as they grow. In a  
wet garden, especially in heavy, poor-drainage soil, just lay the  
pieces on the normal ground surface and cover with straw or other  
mulch. Keep adding. If you use mulch, the harvest is easier; you just  
pull the mulch aside and there is your reward. Forking dirt too often  
cuts the harvest. Of course, once you achieve perfect soil, you can  
dig dirt with your hands.

And every experienced gardener knows that continued mulch application  
is one of the best ways--perhaps the best way--to improve garden soil.

Gene


On Apr 5, 2009, at 5:09 AM, Clansgian AT wmconnect.com wrote:

> > > 10" high???  Around what, each potato plant?
>
> Patience, Iago.
>
>
> Hill them up a couple of inches at a time four of five times during  
> the
> growing season, not all at once.  When the dirt comes around the  
> stem, it provokes
> it to set on more stolons which make more potatoes.  Once the potato  
> blooms
> (flowers) it loses interest in setting on new stolons and so there  
> is o point in
> hilling any further.