Hi Juli,
Mounding doesn't give you more potatoes,it does keep the soil cooler (max 80 degrees for spuds),and it keeps them from turning green (which is slightly toxic solanine poisoning)you don't want your potatoes to see any daylight...that's why you hill them..
Solanine is produced when the potatoes are exposed to sunlight. Even fluorescent lighting at the supermarket can make them turn green.

As potato plants grow, we hill them by pulling up additional soil around the plant. This enables the tubers to develop and expand, and prevents them from poking through the soil and turning green from the sun. Heavy rains can uncover potatoes near the surface, so it's a good idea to check your potato crop after a storm.

Solanine is toxic if consumed in large quantities, so cut away and discard any green portions of potato before you cook with them. When storing potatoes, be sure to keep them in a place where they won't be exposed to light.

{{gwi:25371}}

Here is a link that might be useful: Hilling Potatoes

Hi jonhughes,
I grew potatoes this year, with some success.
I have been following the potato threads just to see what everyone else is doing and if I can learn anything new.

I read with interest about your thoughts on hilling. That hilling will not help produce more potatoes. I am especially interested in this, because I am starting a second batch of potatoes and planned on doing a potato tower. According to the instructions, it is all about starting low and hilling, topping, hilling to get more potatoes as they grow tall in the tower.

Have you done a tower? Is your feeling that it won't work as it says, growing potatoes all along the plant, to the very top?

Has anyone else done a potato tower? Im speaking of one with fencing, not wood.
what say you?

I had a potato tower - didn't do well at all.

It was 2 foot by 3 foot. Started out at one foot deep and put six potatoes in the box.

I kept "hilling" the potatoes up and got up to about 2.5 feet total.

Five of the plants died and they couldn't take the hilling. One survived and it only made potatoes in the top six inches of the bin.

Kennebec is the variety I used.

Here is a link that might be useful: BsnTech Gardening Blog

Hilling potatoes is done to encourage the formation of more potato-bearing "runners" that only form at the stem joints under soil. By hilling up, you get more stem joints under the soil, more runners, more potatoes, up to a point. It seems that once the stem has matured above ground it is too late to form any potato-bearing runners.

dgbeig, there was a couple of long threads here some time back about potato bins. I think "bin" and "tower" are the same thing. Unfortunately, I think those threads aren't available to look at anymore. I read them and the results were consistently disappointing. But keep in mind that these people were building 6 foot bins and expecting the whole thing to be filled with potatoes. There were problems with rodents in the bins and excessive moisture towards the bottoms.