As you may or may not recall, I am the daughter of a potato farmer. And despite having lived on a potato farm for the first 18 years of my life, I had not even thought of planting and growing my own potatoes until this very spring.

In early April I planted about eight “seed” potatoes in a container. Really, these are potato tubers sliced in such a way that each has an “eye” from which a new potato will sprout. You’ve had that potato-sprouting experience before, but in your case it may have been in your fridge. The same thing happens underground, and when it does, it’s a good thing.

The potatoes took longer than I expected to emerge from the box. Potato Farmer Dad said it would take about two weeks—it took more like three. Still, about six plants emerged—a first hurdle overcome.

They’ve been growing well and are about 8-10 inches tall now. And, they are flowering! Yes, potatoes do have flowers, and they are quite pretty, too. They are in the Solanaceae, the botanical family that contains potatoes, peppers, eggplant, and, if you are familiar with it, a weed called Deadly Nightshade.

The potato flowers, although white, I believe most resemble in structure the purple flowers of Deadly Nightshade—petals curled back and pollen-coated stamens pointing together to form something looking like a cone. Pretty, really.

Benefits of Hilling Potatoes

Okay, back to the potato plant. It’s mid to late June. What to do with it now?

Potato Farmer Dad says to “hill” the potatoes. “Hilling” means to create a mound around the base of the potato plant. This does two things:

1. Raising the soil protects the potatoes developing at the soil surface from the sun’s rays, preventing them from getting a green sunburn. This green portion isn’t just bitter tasting, it’s also a bit toxic (or so experts say).

2. Potato plants can be quite tall, and this additional soil can help keep the plants somewhat erect, at least for a while.

How to

On the farm, hilling means using a tractor equipped with a device that scoops soil up from a row and piles it up and around the base the potato plant. As you drive down the row, the device takes what was once basically flat ground and makes a row-long hill. That was harder to describe than I thought it would be.

In a home garden, no tractor is necessary, thank goodness. Just pull in soil from around the base of the potato plant and pile it up the stems. A pile of about 4 inches is good for now. If you’re growing in a box or container, you may need to add soil from another source—either steal some from another portion of the garden or purchase some additional bagged garden soil.

As weather and watering happen, that hill you’ve created around the plant may even out a bit. To counter that, you may need to hill your potatoes again in about a month.

Reading up on potato growing, I see that some say potatoes can be harvested once the plant flowers. I’m sure this is possible, but I imagine the tubers are still quite small. I’m going to wait until mid July, which was when Dad would come home with his first handful of small new potatoes.

My next potato update may actually include potatoes!