Tags: Potato Varieties, Potatoes, Growing Potatoes, Planting Potatoes, Potato Advice, Plant Potatoes, Grow Potatoes

I was told to hill my potato plants, what exactly does this mean and why should I do it?

It just means piling up dirt around your potato plant. Making it like a little hill. It gives your potatoes more dirt to grow in I think. Guess I never thought about it I just did it since my dad always did.

Potatoes tend to grow near the surface, and often you will find greenish new potatoes just sitting there. These are poisonous ... hilling the potatoes covers up the growth area and blocks the sunlight (which is the cause of the poison) before these new potatoes become green.

Really? The green potatoes are poisonous? I didn't know that. So you pretty much want to cover them to block the sun. Do you keep doing this as they grow until it is time to harvest?

Yes, you should hill potatoes normally twice. This also helps them to grow more and better with loose ground. This is a nice web site to read more on it. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilling Hope this helps. This site also helps you to better under stand about green potatoes.