Behind Lindelyst
Who are we?
"We" is actually "me", because I am the only woman in charge of Lindelyst and I have no employees. My name is Karen Lise and I live at Lindelyst, which is just outside Ejby in central Zealand. I am married to Henning and together we have two little girls.
Actually Lindelyst started long before we arrived, as we have only lived here for the past decade, but Lindelyst has been the name of our farm since 1835 and the two remaining giant lime trees that still stand here are probably just as old.
For me personally, the adventure of Lindelyst started long before I set up a business, because when we moved here in 2012 we came straight from an apartment in Nørrebro with no gardening experience. We didn't even have a car (yep, we took over our farm on bikes 😊)
It took hold
But once I moved into the country, I quickly got hooked on growing my own vegetables and flowers. It started with a few raised beds; the next year it turned into a few additional square meters of vegetable garden; the year after that, the garden expanded, and so it went until in 2020 I made the decision that I needed to operate in, work with and be in nature on a daily basis. So I quit my secure, well-paid office job and finally opened Lindelyst.
The first year of Lindelyst as a business was a test. It was important for me to find out whether growing vegetables and flowers was fun for me in the long run - was it fun on rainy days? Was it too hard physically? Could I find my way? Would I get tired of marketing and accounting? Was there a local demand for my produce? Some things went well and some things didn't go so well to say the least, but fun it remained.
The first year as a full-time farmer I grew on 750sqm of old meadowland, I set up a small roadside stand and got through to our first institutional customer. It was tough but exciting.
The second year I set up a farm shop with refrigeration, sold flowers, plants and vegetables and got my first regular professional customer. I also sold about 25 different kinds of flower seeds.
The third year I closed the farm shop again and instead made vegetable boxes, which I delivered weekly to local citizens in Ejby. The flower seed shop was expanded to about 80 varieties.
And now in my fourth year, I'm up to 140 different kinds of flower seeds, finally get this website up and running, and plan to continue with the vegetable boxes this summer.
Self-sufficiency is the driving force behind everything
The common thread running through everything I do here at Lindelyst is self-sufficiency and recycling. Once you've been bitten by the self-sufficiency bug, there's no turning back. Then you think self-sufficiency into everything you do. This means taking your own seeds from year to year (this is how Lindelyst seed sales started), buying everything second hand, growing enough vegetables to support your own family, having poultry and butchering your own meat etc. There is no end to it. It also means that you want to do EVERYTHING yourself. That's why things take time and everything we build will never be completely standard 😊 But that's just what we like.
A hobby that became a lifestyle, which hopefully will become a livelihood
Lindelyst started as a hobby project in self-sufficiency. It is my passion, my baby, my highest desire and my life. I am passionate about Lindelyst and LOVE that I can spend my life working with my hands in the ground and with the sky above my head.
In harmony with nature
Here at Lindelyst we strive to live natural, simple and healthy lives. That lifestyle involves growing our own food, slaughtering our own chickens and living in covenant with nature on an everyday basis. Nature is our guide and sets the direction for all our decisions. It is therefore completely unthinkable that we would ever use pesticides, artificial fertilisers or large machinery in the production of vegetables and flower seeds.
I work with nature, not against it, and try to care for our land, animals, insects and fellow human beings through my work.
I work with plant rotation using the no-dig method, to keep the soil healthy. I grow a very wide range of plants, flowers and vegetables because nature does not benefit from monocultures and at the same time it helps me to minimise the risk of loss if we are attacked by pests for example... which can happen... It's only natural.
All vegetables and flowers are sown, weeded, tended, harvested, washed and packed by hand and all seeds pass through my hands at least 3 times, usually more, before being sent out the door by post to you. For me, this is closeness and love of nature.
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