I don't give too much credence to yotubers but...
Saw a guy say plant potatoes shallow and do deep mulch.
I usually plant 6 or 8 inches down, and cover greens as they grow and also mulch. But years now I never get any potatoes off the stems, only at the root area. So is there a need or benefit to me putting them 6-8 inches down, versus just enough to cover well?

Yeah, My experience as well... even back when I was in potato country.

But... you know...
Covering deeply means less worries about green ones... so not necessarily a bad idea to hill tater plants with soil.

Hi,
This info might be totally wrong so.... just throwing it out there.

I saw lots of those videos too and tried it the summer before last. Planted some purple potatoes as always 4-6" deep in one bed and planted some 'Yukon Gold' potatoes in the first 1" of soil and just under mulch in another bed. Both grew just fine, Yukons plants got just as big as the purple ones. I continued to pile up mulch about 12-16" during the season.

Purple potatoes grew as always, not a great yield but pretty O.K.

About a week or 2 after the Yukons withered and turned brown I dug them up. There was nothing there except for pill bugs. I blamed it on the bugs. Not surprised. I had provided them the perfect habitat and a nice meal. But something kept nagging at me. The roots had been skinny, small and shriveled up (but still produced fine foliage!) but I saw no evidence of tubers at all, not even bits of the original potatoes I had planted.

So I did another online search. Don't remember the exact terms I used that day to describe this predicament. Found lots of those same videos again. But I found a couple of people that also tried it that might have provided the answer to my question. They both stated that potatoes are in the same family as tomatoes and share the same growth patterns, some are determinate and some indeterminate. And only one of these will produce tubers in mulch. Well, they didn't provide any specifics beyond that so... there it is. Maybe it's true, maybe not.

Most websites I have found discussing determinate/indeterminate potatoes don't mention this. But I am thinking of trying it again with a different variety. I mean.... it works for some people!

https://dengarden.com/gardenin...
.
Happy gardening.

There's been some discussion here about this too, that CERTAIN potatoes make off the stems but not all. The ones sold as seed where I get them, Kennebec, Pontiac, Yukon gold- have never shown signs of it.

I am thinking of expanding the garden by digging this winter when I can and putting my sprouted stored potatoes there. I'm down to about one meal of large potatoes. Some of my most beautiful potatoes this year were from a sprouted potato someone gave me in 'compost' from their kitchen, that I found growing happily and replanted.

I don't know about the determinate/ indeterminate thing, but I do grow lots of Red Pontiacs. My Aunt always had plants that were double in height compared to mine, and the cause was that hers had shade in the afternoons, where mine didn't. I moved one patch to an area that also got some afternoon shade to get the same results. By having some shade, the plants grew much longer than the ones with full sun all day, so the determinate thing could be somewhat flawed. I say that because I also grow a few Yukons, Kennececs, and or Katadins. This year I tried the new Evas.

I plant my potatoes in sandy loam soil (in Ohio) and just make the rows with my hoe after tilling the soil. Then, just cover them generously. The fact that the soil was tilled means that it will compact after a rain, which means that the potato will actually seem to migrate more to the surface. After the potatoes are about a foot tall, I will fertilize and hoe them, and pull more soil in to hill them a bit more. As they grow taller, I will then hill and weed them one more time when they are about knee high. After that, they will be too tall and will fall over, making them impossible to do much with. As for the other part about having them produce along the stems, I have indeed seen that with my Pontiacs, but those potatoes were never very large. I will often have quite a few left over and most of the shriveled potatoes will have baby potatoes all over them if they are damp enough. Pontiacs tend to produce in a clump very close to the set you plant, but Kennebecs will send out a longer runner and they will often be a bit further from the plant. Yukons tend to be somewhat fussy for me and unless I dig them while the plants are still green, they can rot easier, so I don't grow very many of them.

sallyg said: There's been some discussion here about this too, that CERTAIN potatoes make off the stems but not all. The ones sold as seed where I get them, Kennebec, Pontiac, Yukon gold- have never shown signs of it.

I am thinking of expanding the garden by digging this winter when I can and putting my sprouted stored potatoes there. I'm down to about one meal of large potatoes. Some of my most beautiful potatoes this year were from a sprouted potato someone gave me in 'compost' from their kitchen, that I found growing happily and replanted.

One of my grandfather's favorite sayings; "there is more than one way to skin a cat".
In my 87 year pilgrimage, I have found this to be pretty accurate. Indeterminate vs determinate potatoes became a hot topic about 10 years when potato towers became the latest fad. It only works for indeterminate varieties and most of the popular varieties are determinate. Of course having been in Georgia for my retirement years, indeterminates take too long and succumb to summer weather. I have reasonable yields planting early varieties in February 6inches deep. They take about a month to emerge thus escaping late spring frosts.
Back in Virginia we did two plantings one in March and a second in July. March planting deep, July only about two inches. In my pre teen years, when threshing machine were in use amassing huge ricks of straw we used the lazy bed method. Planted about 3 inches deep and covered with 6 inches of straw. No cultivation and little digging. Potatoes (Irish Cobbler) literally formed between the straw and the soil. Just raked back the straw and raked out the potatoes with a potato hook. What have I learned? Deep planting is an advantage in cold soil when no other cover is used. Disadvantage in warm soil planting and no advantage with a heavy mulch. In any system you have to provide cover as the potatoes develop to prevent greening.

thanks for the reports and recommendations

I tried doing the straw thing once and mice/ voles ate all of them! I had none at all. Also tried growing some in tubs and only ended up with a bunch of tiny things with the largest ones the size of an egg.

Our older saying was to plant them on Good Friday (or Saturday), but in the last few years I have been planting mine in late June with very good results- mostly due to having lots of summer rain compared to normal years when it is usually very dry. I can say that they come up better in warmer weather, and very quickly also, which is less of a chance that they will rot. I plant them the same depth either way. My family always planted by the moon signs, but I tend to plant them when weather or time permits. In my younger years we would hook a horse drawn plow to the riding mower and plow out the potatoes.

I have grown potatoes on top of the ground, literally , and down as much as 12 some inches deep.
Those on top under mulch, produce a reduced yield of smaller sized potatoes.
(This ALL depends on variety planted as to potato size regardless of planting method.)

The deep ones will produce large potatoes at multiple levels; even planting deep, some varieties will have potatoes on the surface so I cover my potatoes, always, with leaf mulch from (depending on amount available) 10 inches deep to 14 some inches deep on average.

I hilled twice in my decades of growing potatoes (my father always did and was amazed when I just dug hole and put a potato in deep) and found it to be a lot more effort with results lacking from the amount of effort.

My potatoes, always turn into a mass of huge greens that trying to separate to maintian rows is like peeing into the wind.
I have grown many types of finger potatoes due to the better taste, but some can turn (Peruvian Purple is the absolute worst ) into a pain in the buttocks taking off like Morning Glory and spreading timy potatoes all over the garden , which, if you do not harvest EVERY single one can become a weed for years, if just planted in a handy empty place that looked good at the time.
Sending vines out four feet from where the seed potato is, rerooting and taking off from there again.

Most are like regular potatoes .
The only absolute failures I have had, have come from planting in too warm ground, and Colorado Potato Beetles.
I always till my gardens as far down as the roto-tiller blades allow; when I dig a hole for the potatoes, I dig down approx. two sand shovel depths, 16 inches plus or minus, and fill part of the bottom of the hole with loose soil -- (on rare occasions, I will put some variety of top line bagged soil , pre-fertilized, into the bottom of the hole, just to see how those compare to those without.)
The past year I got rid of bags of aging fertilizer by broadcasting it across the gardens.
Not sure it helped with the yield , but the greens were very , very healthy.

Last note, every year I buy new varieties on-line; last year two varieties purches on line had a 70 percent failure, did not grow at all.
They were planted in two different gardens, with same result so some times you are damned if you do and damned if you do not.

Potato ROOTS, prefer acidic , fertile, well drained -- loose -- soil.
How well your soil is- is prepared for the roots, deteremines what you will get to the greatest degree.

I grow potatoes in 2' x 2' potato towers that are 33" high when full. They are built out of 1x6" cedar fence boards. I have the bottom 2 boards around the base. I put about 3" of compost in the tower, put 10 seed potatoes in and cover with 3" of compost. When the plants get about 9" tall I add about 3" of compost. If I need to I add a board and keep following this process until the tower is full. Red Pontiacs seem to do well and so have yellow finn, cal whites and pioneer russets. They don't all do as well but they all have provided potatoes off of the stems. Yukon Golds haven't done as well but they are also a shorter variety. The picture is red pontiacs.