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How to Grow Potatoes: Trench and Hill Method

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What could be more satisfying than the flavor of freshly dug potatoes lifted straight from your own garden? Learn how to grow potatoes using the traditional trench and hill method.

Growing potatoes using trench and hill method involves digging trenches, planting seed potatoes, and hilling the potato plants as they grow. This is the traditional method of growing potatoes that farmers have used for centuries only scaled down for the backyard garden.

You can’t beat the flavor of freshly dug potatoes from your own garden. Potatoes are a staple crop that can feed you almost all year because they store well in a root cellar or cool basement.

One of the methods of planting potatoes is the trench and hill method. This involves digging trenches, piling the soil in between the trenches, planting the seed potatoes, and hilling the potato plants as they grow.

This is the traditional method of growing potatoes that farmers have used for centuries only scaled down for the backyard garden. The hilling method is ideal if you have good-quality soil and a large garden space.

How to Grow Potatoes: Trench and Hill Method

After you have sourced your seed potatoes, figured our when to plant, and prepared the potato seeds for planting, you are ready to dig your trenches.

Step 1: Plot out your potato bed

Remove all weeds, measure out your rows, and dig trenches about 4-6 inches deep and two feet apart. Mound up your soil in between the rows. You will be using this soil to hill your potatoes later.

What could be more satisfying than the flavor of freshly dug potatoes lifted straight from your own garden? Learn how to grow potatoes using the traditional trench and hill method.

Step 2: Add amendments

Once the trench is dug, add some finished compost and an organic fertilizer to the bottom of the trench and work it into the soil.

Step 3: Plant your potato seed

Place your potato seeds about 12-inches apart and cover with just 4 inches of soil. Water the newly planted potato bed very well. Your potato plants should emerge from the soil in about two weeks. It may take longer if the soil is still cold.

Step 4: Hill the potato plants

As the potatoes grow, pull the soil from the mounds in between the trenches to cover the new growth.

When the plants are 6-8 inches tall, begin hilling the potatoes by gently mounding the soil from the center of your rows around the stems of the plant. Mound up the soil around the plant until just the top few leaves show above the soil.

Two weeks later, hill up the soil again when the plants grow another 6-8 inches. Repeat the process of hilling and building up the soil as the plants continue to grow until there is about 12-18-inches of soil around the plant.

potato plant with soil hilled up around the stems

Step 4: Mulch the potato bed

Mulch thickly with straw or shredded leaves to keep the soil cool, weed-free, and to cover any tubers that grow close to the surface to prevent them from turning green.

potato plants mulched with straw

Step 5: Harvest your potatoes

Baby potatoes are delicious. Once the potato plants bloom, you can begin harvesting potatoes as needed for meals. Dig carefully beneath the soil and pull out what you need. Try not to damage too many roots so the plant can continue growing. If you are growing potatoes for storage, allow the tubers to remain in the ground to mature fully.

What could be more satisfying than the flavor of freshly dug potatoes lifted straight from your own garden? Learn how to grow potatoes using the traditional trench and hill method.

I enjoyed a great harvest for my first attempt at growing potatoes. Although the potato crop I grew using the trench and hilling method was successful, I didn’t like the extra labor involved in hilling, the messy appearance of the garden, and the wasted space in between the rows. The following year, I tried growing potatoes using the John Jeavons’ Grow Biointensive method. Visit this article to learn another way to grow potatoes: Planting Potatoes the Biointensive Way.

Want to Learn How to Grow Potatoes?

You will find everything you need to start growing potatoes in my PDF eBook, Grow a Good Life Guide to Growing Potatoes. Whether you are striving for a few gourmet fingerling potatoes or a large crop for winter food storage, this guide will show how you can grow your own, organic, homegrown potatoes.Grow a Good Life Guide to Growing Potatoes Learn More

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As potato plants grow, gather soil around stems, and cover until just the top few leaves show above the soil. This process is called "hilling." Read on for more tips on growing potatoes.

10 Comments

  1. EG: I find it difficult to believe that you suck at growing anything.

    KitsapFG: Your blog was a huge help in showing me how to plant potatoes. Thank you! I am watching your new method closely as well.

    Daphne: Thanks!

    Ribbit: Thank you! We will see how it goes.

  2. Thomas: The trenches were only 6-9 inches deep. I think the mounded soil in between the trenches made them look deeper. I wonder if the potatoes sprouting in your pots is due to the soil being warmer than the ground?

  3. Granny: I hope you are right. I have never grown potatoes before. I am looking forward to baby red potatoes. I didn’t know when I could steal some. Thanks!

  4. You are off to the potato races! I think you will find that you will get a good harvest from your plot.

    I am doing a different approach with my potato patch this year from my normal and am hoping for even greater yeilds as a result. I was happy to see that the potatoes are breaking ground in the bed over the past few days so it looks like my new deeper planting method may prove to be a winner.

  5. Hopefully they perform well for you! Those are some mighty trenches that you dug! My potted potatoes have sprouted already but still no signed of the ones I planted in the ground.

  6. Oh, I’ll bet you are going to have a fine potato harvest! Just don’t forget to steal a few of those baby reds anytime after the plants blossom. Just carefully reach your fingers down into the soil and feel around for them. I also planted Norlands and Kennebecks, and hope our infestation of wire worms doesn’t do too much harm to them this year.

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