Trench Planting Potatoes

Trench Planting potatoes is an easy method you can use to grow potatoes that has many benefits. The idea of Trench Planting is digging trenches, and using the hilled up dirt on the edges of your trench to mound the potatoes as they grow. This method makes for much easier maintenance. Keep reading below to find out why.

What is Trench Planting?

To trench plant potatoes you dig a 7-8 inch trench, and hill up the dirt on either side. Then drop the potato seedlings into the trench about 12 inches apart, and cover with about 4 inches of dirt.

As your seedlings grow, you can use the dirt already standing on either side of the trench to mound the dirt easily around the plants. Since your hill of dirt is already piled up from digging the trenches, you can simply rake the dirt around your plants instead of digging, or finding dirt from another source.

Trenching Tips

My biggest tip when digging your trenches is leave plenty of room in between each row. We like to leave room for our tiller to fit between each row. You can easily run your tiller in between the rows to loosen up your hills of dirt. Of course, being able to loosen up the dirt with the tiller, makes mounding your potatoes so much easier.

Perks of Trench Planting Potatoes

The number one perk for trench planting potatoes is how easy it makes mounding your potatoes as they grow. The dirt is already there and ready to use. This means no need to dig or find additional dirt, or other means, to cover your growing plants. The trench also leaves your plant lower than the ground around it. Therefore, you don’t have to hill the plants up as much, you can just add dirt into the trench, which is much easier.

I hope these tips for Trench Planting Potatoes gives you some ideas on how to make your garden more functional. We always try to make our lives easier, and have other potato planting tips if you are just getting started. If you found this helpful, send me a message on Instagram. I would love to hear about your potato planting journey. : )