Farm to fork at Ulriksdals Värdshus, Stockholm, Sweden
Ulriksdals Värdshus and restaurant Emmer are two of the most progressive restaurants in Scandinavia and they have over the years developed their own farm-to-fork concept. Welcome to discover restaurant Emmer and the growing fields of Ulriksdals Värdshus, a classic just outside Stockholm city.
The kitchen staff and the gardeners work together systematically with sustainable solutions for their supply of vegetables, restaurant greens, spices, berries, and flowers. The goal is to create an ecosystem that helps improve the environment. With these goals, it is natural for them to work with the geographical origin of the food, but also with tracing who has handled the produce and how the production has affected the environment. Therefore, they opt out of industrially produced food in favor of produce from their own kitchen garden and from producers who put craftsmanship and nature first. Apart from produce, flowers are an important part of the production since they decorate all the sister restaurants with flowers from the Ulriksdal kitchen garden.
Meet the gardener Maria and Restaurant manager Fanny
Farm architecture
Together with the gardener Maria, we will increase the yields by improving their irrigation with the Spowdi system. Smart farming is in line with the farm-to-fork concept and a zero-emission irrigation system was a perfect match for the operation. It won´t get any more locally produced than this. When you are sitting in the restaurant you are literally overlooking the growing and can enjoy watching the produce of the season.
Kitchen-garden at Ulriksdals Värdshus
Size: Two acres divided into eight irrigation zones
Crop: Restaurant greens, vegetables, kale, berries, spices, flowers
Water source: Dam
Irrigation: Spowdi Mobile Pro connected to eight drip-kits. One drip-kit per irrigation zone.
Irrigation set-up
The first step was to build a dam from where the farm easily could be irrigated. That became the center of the installation from where the Spowdi system and dripline set-up helps optimize production and boosting yields.
Spowdi Mobile Pro is connected to 16 mm drip tape with 30 cm spacing between the drippers. Each dripper will produce 2,2 L/h. Irrigation at Ulriksdals kitchen garden has become very effective and all the zones can easily be irrigated during a day.
Growing area
Eight irrigation-zones
The two-acre growing fields are divided into eight growing zones. By dividing the farm into zones makes it easier to adjust the amount of, and time for, the water to be supplied through the driplines into each zone. It also makes crop rotation alot easier. In each irrigation zone, every dripline can be turned on and off separately, to make the system fully flexible.
Welcome backstage with us!
- For the love of bees
“We are an organic farm and insects are our friends. One could say that we use bees instead of fertilizers,” says Maria, the gardener at Ulriksdals värdshus, in the Stockholm region. Insects are amazing! They might annoy you during meals outside in the summer, but they play an important role in agriculture, ecosystem services, and …