THE GREENHOUSES
GROWING FOOD, GROWING PEOPLE
About the Greenhouses
Thurso Community Development Trust have been running a gardening project in the town since 2019 (Thurso Grows). Due to the success of the gardens in Ormlie, we were offered former Highland Council Greenhouses in the town centre which we were delighted to take on as a community greenspace and project. Run down and in need of extensive repairs, since early 2022, we have been refurbishing them to create a thriving growing space.
Launched in 2023, our Greenhouse project offers locally grown food and plants for our community alongside the opportunity for people to learn about growing, sustainable food production, and promoting a safe, green space for people to come to.
Our focus for this project is simple:
Build community and work with other partner organisations in the county to support our town
Celebrate our amazing volunteers and help them learn skills and gain new knowledge
Grow the most amazing plants and food for Thurso!
We are always looking for and welcoming to anyone who would be keen to join us as a volunteer. If you have an interest in growing plants, decorative or edible, then please do not hesitate to get in touch via the contact details at the bottom of the page. We have other projects where volunteers would be welcome as well, so do let us know if that would be of interest.
Who we work with
Social Care - providing a place for adults with care to volunteer
Local Schools - allowing children from local primary schools to learn about and work with plants and nature.
Women’s Groups - have done art/nature sessions and greenhouse tours with both the North Highland Women’s Wellness and a local Women’s Institute Branch
KLICS - have ran art, plant and nature sessions for the kids who are part of KLICS
Sidh C Art - local art group based in Halkirk who have ran several “Art in the Garden” sessions
UHI - we have a couple of groups from the local UHI campus, catering and pathways students
Community Justice - allows community justice placements for payback hours, while also getting help around the place.
We are always happy to work with any local community groups. If you would be interested in working with us or making use of the greenhouse space, please do not hesitate to get in touch using the contact details at the bottom of the page.
Maker’s Meet/Repair Café
In early 2025, we have started up a new creative woodworking project known as the Maker’s Meet. For this, we have had a fantastic canopy installed to keep the woodworking area dry.
Currently the project is in it’s infancy with a small number of volunteers. We have already made a sturdy new workbench, a handful of window planters and a couple of birdboxes.
The Maker’s Meet is for a small team of people, men or women, to come together to create any woodworking ideas that they may have. The current idea is to sell for a donation, to keep funding further for wood and tools needed for the project. If this sounds like something that you would like to get involved with, please reach out to us.
A workbench under a sturdy new canopy was the ideal place to set up our successful and long-running repair café.
The repair café is run monthly, usually on the last Saturday of the month, where our “resident handyman” Suds volunteers his time to see if your garden tools, broken items or bicycle, can be given a new lease of life and not thrown to the dump.
When to find us?
The Greenhouses are open on Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays from 10am to 2pm.
We are open to the public and volunteer sessions will run during the times above.
These sessions are weather dependent as the wonderful Caithness weather is not always our friend! However, we do tend to run in light rain or wind but will cancel in stormy conditions.
You can always contact us or follow our notices to see what sessions will be running.
If you would like to be a part of our team, send us an email at info@thursocdt.co.uk or call us on 01847 867310.
