Perfect isolation

Living on a croft in the Outer Hebrides has given young mum Karen Macleod the perfect opportunity to excel at growing her own fruit and veg, as she explains to Chris McCullough, who paid her a visit just before lockdown

- Chris McCullough

With nothing but the bleats of sheep as her background music, and the distinguishable aura of the sea dominating the air, Isle of Lewis crofter Karen Macleod is in her perfect isolated paradise pottering away with her vegetables.

Islanders on the Outer Hebrides know very well what isolation feels like at the best of times, but particularly now when all the tourists have vanished amid the coronavirus pandemic.

While the visitors may have gone, life goes on, and for Karen that means spending time home schooling her three young daughters, Molly, nine, and identical twins Amber and Paige, seven, and retreating to her somewhat “posh greenhouse” where there is already a plethora of fruit and veg colours established.

“We have adapted well to lockdown. We’re coping, I think. My husband, John, is self-employed and is working from home half days while I home school our three girls,” says a cheery Karen whose other half is a self-employed chartered engineer who runs his own business on the island with his brother.

“After schooling we venture out to our Polycrub, which is a large-scale greenhouse designed to suit our island weather systems.”

Food sustainability is very important to Karen and her family, whose 1.5ha croft lies beside Stornoway Airport looking out to the North Sea.

One of the main directions in which Karen wanted to steer her croft development was to produce her own healthy fruit and vegetables, free from any chemicals and grown only with natural fertilisers.