Farm available for great ideas

Writer: Thomas Guldbæk, Gaarden

Photo by: Semko Balcerski

Gaarden is the old agricultural museum Melstedgård and the modern Food Culture House. Gaarden is a partnership between the museum and Gourmet Bornholm (an association of local food producers and restaurateurs). Thereby, Gaarden is not only a place for cultural-historical information but also a base for food development and innovation.

At Gaarden we have approx. 26 ha of land converted to organic farming.

This is the part of the land we are now making available to innovators who want to try out ideas. It can be new crops, new cultivation methods, conservation of varieties, or you want to start producing own vegetables, fruits and berries for your local restaurant or food business.

As a farm innovator, they undertake to cultivate the land organically and occasionally communicate about the entrepreneurial project in connection with any events at Gaarden. In return, they get access to:

• Plots of land from 100 m2 to 3 ha.
• Network with other marketers.
• Feedback from Gaarden’s employees – both in agriculture, food innovation, food culture history and knowledge of local wild herbs and berries.
• Opportunity to borrow machinery and equipment.
• Opportunity for a demo product, etc. 

In 2022, 11 projects are on their way, and several have shown interest in starting.

The winegrowers
Five future winegrowers have planted over 1,000 vines in the fields. The dream is to produce crisp, fresh, natural white wine. They expect to make the first small sample production in the fall of 2022.

Kadeau
The well-known Michelin restaurant from Sydbornholm now complements its small herb garden with a larger area for exciting fruit, berries, edible flowers and much more.

Stig’s Oliven
They are experimenting with cultivating olives under the particularly favourable Bornholm climate.

KalasBornholm
Rhubarb and fruit for the ice cream production. Kalas makes ice cream from organic whole milk and fruit and berries from the island’s gardens, in future also from its rhubarb and orchard.

Listedgård Mulberry plantation
The first 60 mulberry trees are grafted with branches from their mulberry tree in Listed (and other old trees from Bornholm). We work to preserve this part of our living cultural heritage. There is a collaboration between Bornholms Museum and Kalundborg Museum on disseminating and registering historic mulberry trees.

Foods Bornholm
Bornholm’s plant proteins are from a growing local community that strives to produce 100% plant-based foods of the highest quality according to organic principles.

Bornholms Ismejeri
In their youth, people from Bornholm have eaten a “Sherbet” fruit ice cream with cherry flavour and dark chocolate. The basis for reviving this ice cream – with local berries of high quality – we are now creating by planting a small cherry orchard.

Guldbæk & Braun
In 2022, two food and plant nerds will start a wild forest garden with figs, chestnuts, mushrooms, fruit, berries, wild hops and many wild herbs.

Forest garden and height curve cultivation
In the coming years, Micha, Marco and Lavinia will grow nuts, fruits, mushrooms and vegetables with a focus on sustainability and biodiversity.

Stammershalle Badehotel
The excellent seaside hotel restaurant still supports the island’s organic producers. With this project, they will supplement with their vegetables and some berries and fruit in the long run. They have therefore hired an organic gardener to build and look after their garden on the farm.

Genbanken
Here the farm collects, preserves and propagates wild or old cultivated plants. The farm passes these on to entrepreneurs who can re-establish the cultivation and product development of new innovative products.