Potato question

[farmerlon]

...
"Should I cover the plant entirely?"

I never cover the plant. I add 2 or 3 inches of soil mounded up around the plant. I only do this one time. .

If I may, let me add one exception to that.
If you have potato plants coming up in the Spring, and a "late frost" threatens ... you can cover the entire (small) plant with soil. That protects the plant from the frost, and it will grow right back through the soil within a day or two.

[farmerlon]

Well I took a combination of the info I was given and I mixed some compost, straw and soil together and put it around the plants. ....

That sounds perfect... nice job !

[jal_ut]

Cheater! How wide are your rows? Mine are less than 3' between each one.

Mike, my rows are 32 inches apart. That works well for using the tiller to both hill potatoes, and cultivate and remove weeds. I only use the hiller attachment on the potatoes. I run the tiller between all the rows one time when the plants are still small. Then it leaves only a little hoeing to get the garden pretty weed free. If I couldn't use the tiller like that, I would be cutting the garden way down to about 100 sq feet.