Hi Alison to do best you need seed potatoes and you should have been 'chitting' them over the past couple of months (i.e. allowing them to sprout shoots). It depends how near the trees you are wanting to plant, trees have lots of roots which a) take all the nourishment from the soil and b) make it difficult to work. As you need to be able to ridge your potatoes up you need a good depth of soil to be able to grow them well.

If finding space in the ground is a problem, grow your potatoes in large sacs or large planters. I know MG won't approve but lots of us do it for lots of different reasons. You will still get a decent crop. You can use old potatoes that have sprouted just to see what happens. But buy certified seed potatoes afterwards as these will be disease free. Welcome to GOY and vegetable growing

To do well potatoes need lots of water to help the tubers (the potatoes) swell so planting them near trees is probably not a good idea. I also agree with the earlier comments made although it is not strictly neccessary to chit potatoes, they just take a little longer to grow if you don't.

I would not risk planting shop bought eating potatoes just because of the risk of disease. Any garden centre will have seed potatoes for sale and by now they will be ready chitted.

Great it isn't that I don't approve of growing in containers simply that it is far more of a faff than growing in the ground and our experience was that the yield was no where near as good as that from the same potatoes planted in the ground. I know that others on GoY have had success with this - they probably gave more focussed time to watering!

hi guys thanks for advise ... will bob along and get seed potatoes... if they actually grow into a crop it will be a miracle! dont think my raised beds are deep enough for potatoes or carrots so looks like i may need deep containers or potatoe sack thingiess you can buy this may seem daft but how do i know when i can harvest any crop ? thanks alison

Depends whether you are planting first early's 2nd early's, early main crop or late main crop.