We had two beds of potatoes this year, in the dirt and a Ruth Stout style bed.

Dirt

The potatoes in the post image were grown in the front lawn. We are trying to improve the soil which has a lot of clay. I understand potato cultivation is used to break up dense soils so why not?

The potatoes are put in trenches in the dirt but most of the hilling was with straw. All the potatoes were in the dirt, none grew up into the straw.

The next image shows the relationship between the plant and where the tubers form.

Ruth Stout

These potatoes were placed on wood chips and buried in straw.

They were also hilled with straw like the ones in the dirt.

It's a bit easier to see the formation of the tubers on these ones because you can pull the whole plant up really easily:

Interestingly, some of these dug into the wood chips and grew down there. Overall, the harvest was pretty comparable to the ones in the dirt based on my guestimates of how many potatoes we started with in each lol

We've eaten a few, and the rest are curing on the shelf. Most will become seed potatoes for next year.