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 centre of Thurso 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 Greenhouses project offers locally grown food and plants to our community and the opportunity for people to learn about growing, sustainable food production as well as promoting a safe, green space for people to come to.
Our focus for this project is simple:
Build community and work with other partner organizations 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 on joining 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 - Allow children from local primary schools to learn about and work with plants and nature.
Women’s Groups - Have done art/nature sessions and greenhouses 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 has 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 greenhouse space then please do not hesitate to get in touch using the contact details at the bottom of the page.
Sharing Shed
Constructed and opened in the spring of 2025, our wee sharing shed compliments the main sharing shed based over in Millbank (beside the youth club and Mill Theatre).
Completely free to use, but welcoming of donation to help us run, the shed contains items kindly provided by Fareshare, CFine, Coop, Lidl and local bakery Johnstons.
The shed mostly contains tinned and dried foods as these have longer shelf lives. Fruits, vegetables and refrigerated items can still be found in our main shed. We have installed a freezer that contains mostly frozen bread items.
Towards the end of summer, you can find some of greenhouse grown produce available in the shed. The includes our delicious tomatoes, cucumbers and courgettes, amongst other fruit and vegetables that are in excess from the greenhouses and Thurso Grows gardens.
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, but 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 and 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, then please get in touch with us via the contact details at the bottom of the page.
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 a once a month event, usually 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.
From 2025/2026, the repair café will become a whole year event. When the weather starts to deteriorate, the café will move to our Community Space on Rotterdam Street (formerly Socially Growing, Temptations, Jessie Allans).
When To Find Us
We are about at The Greenhouses on:
Monday 10am-2pm
Thursday 10am - 2pm
Friday 10am - 2pm
We are open to the public, volunteer sessions and the sharing shed is available on the times above.
These sessions are also weather dependant as the wonderful Caithness weather isn’t always our friend, we do tend to run in light rain/wind but call off in stormy conditions.
You can always contact us or follow our notices to see what sessions are running or not.
Contact Details
If you would like to be a part of Thurso Grows then drop us an email at
info@thursocdt.co.uk
or call us on
(01847) 867310
07940441134
