We're still feeling our way with the vegetable garden we've hacked out of a bracken- and bramble-choked hillside above our house. This year we planted a few more potatoes than last, in a new, but very small bed. In all, we put in eight little seed potatoes....
....and, in return, we've just dug out over 5kg of near-perfect produce, an almost incredible return.
Little wonder that, when the potato was introduced to the western Highlands, it quickly became so popular. However, the heavy reliance on one crop had a devastating effect when, from 1846 onwards, blight appeared and the harvest was wiped out. As a result, hundreds of thousands of Highlanders left their homes, many going abroad.
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