🌱🍰 We were delighted to attend today's Grow & Bake webinar, with Coinneach MacLeod (The Hebridean Baker) and Pàdruig MacCuidhein.
We greatly enjoyed the recipe and baking session, and the discussion around small scale food production!
As many of us know, growing food in the Hebrides means dealing with harsh Atlantic winds and unpredictable weather.
The webinar offered a great reminder of how practical, sustainable gardening methods can help growers adapt to these challenges.
👉 Here are the main takeaways:
🪴 The Perks of Container Growing:
This is an excellent, flexible method for island climates. Growing in containers means the growing medium can be controlled, and plants can be moved to sheltered spots or brought indoors when the weather turns, making it much easier to protect crops from extreme weather.
🌱 Composting and Soil Health:
Making your own compost is one of the best ways to build healthy local soil. It helps growers become more self-sufficient while keeping organic waste out of landfills, directly cutting down on emissions.
🍅 Encouraging Lower Food Waste:
Traditional island cooking is naturally resourceful. Emphasizing low food waste at home is a simple but powerful way to reduce our carbon footprint and make the most of what we grow.
🥕 The session was a great reminder that you don’t need a massive plot of land to make a difference - even a windowsill herb selection or a pot of carrots in the porch is one less food item intensively farmed (sometimes overseas with copious chemical additions), wrapped in plastic, and shipped across the Minch.
Simple steps like container gardening and home composting make local food resilience achievable for everyone, even in challenging climates.
💭 Do you grow any of your own food? Show us your prize produce! 🍓
@hebrideanbaker@nhs_westernisles #CommunityLearningHebrides #WesternIslesLearningShop
#GrowYourOwn #CommunityResilience #LoweringFoodMiles #EatWhatYouGrow
🙋♀️ Who else has been enjoying the vibrant springtime colours across our islands?
The dazzling yellow flowers and delicate coconut scent of the gorse certainly brightens a gloomy day - but gorse also plays an important role in biodiversity across our islands.
🌼 The early gorse flowering season makes it an important source of protein-rich pollen, often vital to pollinators in the early spring when little else is in flower.
🐤 The spiny leaves and dense structure create an ideal habitat for nesting birds such as stonechats, twite, and meadow pipits. The thick tangle of branches also provide a safe refuge for birds in harsh weather.
🕷️ Gorse supports a huge variety of invertebrate life, from moth and butterfly caterpillars to beetles and orb-weaver spiders.
🌱 Gorse captures nitrogen, improving soil quality over time.
These delicate ecosystems are at risk from the impacts of climate change, with more storm events in winter, localised flooding, less rainfall in summer, rising sea levels, and increased coastal erosion.
💚 But, together, we can take action - join the Outer Hebrides Climate Hub and help protect our local wildlife:
Join for free 👉 Link in bio
#ClimateChange #BiodiversityLoss #OuterHebridesWildlife #ClimateAction
📍 Our Climate Story | Isle of Lewis 🌊
“These dunes provide an important role as a buffer against the sea for the SSSI mudflats, salt marsh and related wildlife and surrounding village of Steinish. Should they continue to disappear and allow direct tidal flows and surges directly into the Steinish basin, the implications for the village, wildlife and wider coastal erosion will be significant.”
Rising sea levels and increased coastal erosion is changing familiar places across the Outer Hebrides. By sharing lived experiences like this, the Our Climate Story Map helps capture how climate change is being felt locally, and why adaptation matters for our islands.
Have you noticed changes where you live?
Your story matters - add your voice:
👉 Link in bio ➡️ Pin your story on Our Climate Story Map
#OurClimateStory #OuterHebrides #IsleOfLewis #CoastalErosion #ClimateChange #IslandVoices
🌱🍰 Online event: Grow and bake with the @hebrideanbaker and Peter MacQueen 🍰🌱
Join Coinneach and Peter for some practical guidance on planting in small spaces and seasonal cooking with homegrown ingredients - just email to book your place!
🗓️ Monday 18th May
🕒 2pm
👉 Email to book: [email protected]@nhs_westernisles
#GrowYourOwn #CommunityResilience #LoweringFoodMiles #EatWhatYouGrow #WesternIslesLearningShop
Our friends at @scvoscot and Growing Climate Confidence are running free online events this month:
📆 14th May 2026, 1 pm - 3 pm
🌱 Active hope: a taster session
This looks at sustaining ourselves emotionally in climate action, through connection, resilience, and creative response.
📆 20th May 2026, 12 pm - 12.45 pm
🌱 ClimatACTical game launch
This short session gives a practical, energising introduction to a new learning resource that builds confidence, sparks new thinking, and fits the reality of third sector work when thinking about climate action.
✨ You can find out more and book your free space at:
scvo.scot/events-training/calendar
#ClimateAction #ClimateConfidence #GrowingClimateConfidence #FreeTraining
📢 The Powering Communities to Net Zero fund is now open!
✅ Funding awards are usually between £1,000 and £20,000 - could your island community benefit?
The fund, from Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks, has a total value of £3m and runs annually until spring 2028.
Funding is split between two sections:
🌎 The Low-Carbon Technology Fund helps support the purchase and adoption of new low-carbon technologies like heat pumps and solar panels.
🌎 The Physical and Environmental Resilience Fund provides grants to support communities during prolonged power interruptions caused by storms, and to aid their ability to cope in periods of severe weather.
⏰ The closing date for this round of applications is 12 noon on Thursday 21st May 2026.
👉 Apply now via the SSEN Powering Communities to Net Zero Fund page - use the direct link in our bio!
Two Outer Hebrides organisations received funding previously - will your community be next? 🤞
@ssencommunity
#NetZero #CommunityGrants #LowCarbonFuture #SSEN #GreenCommunities
"...it’s amazing how much food waste we would have thrown away otherwise."
This is International Compost Awareness Week, so let's take some inspiration from our Climate Hub members in Uist, who are successfully reducing food waste sent to landfill, and instead creating compost!
It's a fantastic example of community action, demonstrating that small, practical steps can make a meaningful difference:
🌱 Less food waste going to landfill means a reduction in methane produced
🌱 Food waste becomes a valuable resource, with compost used to improve soil health
🌱 Nutrient-rich soil can support healthy crops, making our local food production more resilient
✨ Use the link in our bio to look at our 2026 case studies to find out more about the project - and if YOU have any top composting tips, we'd love to hear them!
#ICAW2026 #FeedTheSoil #Compost #IslandResilience #CircularLiving #CommunityAction
🪻🦋 No Mow May is here! 💫
If you haven't heard of it before, it's a really easy way to support our native wildlife and our local biodiversity.
Climate change is already disturbing the timing of cycles in nature, endangering local species. By giving nature a chance to do its thing, we can create healthy habitats and provide vital food sources pollinators, like butterflies and bees.
At the same time, the long grasses and wild plant species encourage a thriving mini-ecosystem, helping insects to flourish, creating feeding opportunities for birds, and providing shelter for small mammals
So, to take part, all you have to do is NOT mow during May - whether you choose your entire garden, a corner of your lawn, a just a flowerbed.
We did say it was easy! 🌱
#NoMowMay #GreenSpaces #LetItGrow #Biodiversity #HealthyEcosystems #IslandsResilience #ClimateAction
@plantlife.loveplants
Today is Stop Food Waste Day - the largest single day of action in the fight against global food waste!
🌾 33% of all food produced globally is lost or wasted every year
🍎 45% of root crops, fruit, and vegetables produced globally is lost or wasted per year
💨 8% of all greenhouse gas emissions each year are due to food loss and waste
If we all make small changes, together we can make a difference - check out these top tips to fight food waste, and please share your own tips with us!
#StopFoodWasteDay #ClimateAction #StopFoodWaste #TopTips #WednesdayWisdom
✨🌿 Climate action success in the Outer Hebrides!
Take a look at our 2026 Case Studies to see how organisations across the islands have successfully implemented climate action projects over the last year, with support from the Outer Hebrides Climate Hub.
Project themes include land and food resilience, biodiversity and nature, and circular living, and there are some handy community guides, too - we've included a few examples in our photos.
See the case studies in full - in English and Gaelic - just use the link in our bio, above.
✨🙋♀️ Now - what could you do in your area or organisation?
#OuterHebridesClimateHub #ClimateAction #CommunitySuccess #ClimateSuccess #ClimateCaseStudies #ClimateResources #WesternIsles
🌍🌱 Feeling inspired by Earth Day?
Switching to an electric vehicle (EV) is an increasingly practical option for reducing transport emissions in remote island communities.
Given the ever-increasing cost of petrol and diesel, not to mention the current volatility in pricing, an EV can be good for your pocket as well as for the planet.
🚗 Find out more in our short, practical guide to owning an EV in the Outer Hebrides - use the direct link in our bio!
#ClimateAction #OurPowerOurPlanet #SustainableTransport #EarthDay #ClimateResilience
It's Earth Day! 🌍🌱
The theme this year is 'Our power, our planet', celebrating the positive impacts that we can make both individually and collectively in our communities.
Members of the Outer Hebrides Climate Hub have been involved in a huge variety of projects across the islands, all working towards mitigating and adapting to the impacts of climate change here in the islands. Projects include:
🌱 Creating wildlife havens and urban greenspaces
🌱 Tree-planting to protect against erosion
🌱 Encouraging local food production
🌱 Reducing and repurposing plastic, food, and textile waste
It's easy to make small changes at home, too - benefitting both the planet and your pocket!
👉 Check out our online resources for more ideas: climatehebrides.com/climate-hub/resources/ or see some of our suggestions in the comments!
What's the easiest change you've made?
#EarthDay2026 #OurPowerOurPlanet #ClimateMitigation #ClimateAdaptation #ClimateResilience
