The rooftop garden at Clarion Hotel® Post
Can hotel food be grown on the hotel’s own roof? Of course! Six years ago, the rooftop garden opened at the top of Clarion Hotel® Post in Gothenburg. But the project was no walk in the park, and it wasn’t until urban farmers Jonas Lindh and William Bailey joined the crew that things really kicked into gear. And just like that, the hotel’s guests were all set to enjoy incredibly local food.
Strawberry has long been known for our commitment to sustainability, and you may already know that Clarion Hotel® The Hub in Oslo has two large rooftop gardens. Since the hotel’s opening in 2019, our restaurant guests at Clarion Hotel® The Hub have enjoyed delicious, site-grown ingredients. But perhaps less well-known is that even before this, in 2016, another rooftop garden was already open at Clarion Hotel® Post in Gothenborg. The garden there is still going strong to this day, and everything from carrots, radishes, beets, onions, lettuce, and cabbage enjoy the daily sunshine (and spectacular views!)
Extraordinary ingredients on the menu
In 2021, new owners took over cultivation of the Clarion Hotel® Post garden (after urban farmers Jonas Lindh and William Bailey), and in 2022 the collaboration with the hotel’s restaurant, Norda, became even stronger, with more vegetables delivered from the garden than ever before, all feeding the hotel’s hungry guests! The hotel’s other restaurant, Vrå, makes use of more unusual vegetables from the garden, including shiso, shungiku, edible flowers, and horseradish.
How does a hotel create a rooftop garden?
Two years after the garden began feeding hungry guests with delicious site-grown food, we sat down for a chat with the hotel employees and the urban farmers that worked with the garden in its beginnings. How does one actually start a garden space on a hotel rooftop? Read more below to see what they had to say about the project in 2018.
Lacked important knowledge about cultivation
There were many challenges when Martin Wiholm and Fredrik Blomberg at Clarion Hotel® Post decided to establish a garden on the hotel rooftop.
“The first thing we did was to test the rooftop’s load-bearing capacity. All in all, we had to haul up 90 cubic meters of soil, around 100 tons. Then we began to set up the garden beds, and then we could actually begin planning what we were going to plant,” says Martin.
“We didn’t understand that it required completely different skill sets than what we ourselves had in order to properly cultivate the plants.”
The thought behind the rooftop garden was that we could use it to supply the hotel’s two restaurants and bars with vegetables and herbs.
“Initially, we thought it would just involve planting, watering, and harvesting. We didn’t understand that it required completely different skillsets than we ourselves had in order to properly cultivate the plants. A lot of what we planted couldn’t be used before autumn. We ended up with too much of some items, whilst the items that we, the chefs, and the bartenders needed most, we had too little of.”
Two urban farmers saved the garden
Around the same time that Clarion Hotel® Post began cultivating veggies, two urban farmers, Jonas Lindh and William Bailey, began gardening along a quay in the Gothenburg harbour, with much success. The conditions on the quay were quite similar to those on the Clarion Hotel® Post rooftop, and they teamed up with the hotel to improve the garden.
“Instead of continuing to garden ourselves, we had them take over the process, and then we purchase back the produce.”
“Whatever you are growing, there will always be challenges associated with organic gardening. You have to always be on the look-out for pests. This year, we had problems with aphids in our green house, but after a while, ladybirds found their way up to the roof and helped us get their numbers down,” says Jonas Lindh, who is an anthropologist.
“This season, the garden supplied the kitchen with romaine lettuce, which has been used as the base for between 400 and 500 dishes.”
Together, the chefs and bartenders, along with Lindh’s partner and fellow gardener, William Bailey, discussed how they would deliver enough food throughout the entire growing season (March through October).
“Because we are on a roof, we don’t have problems with snails. This has made for very good growing conditions for lettuce and cabbage, particularly. This season, the garden supplied the kitchen with romaine lettuce, which has been used as the base for between 400 and 500 dishes. Another important thing I want to point out is that we fertilise the soil with our own compost. This ensures that we have very good soil quality.”
How does the composting work?
“We use a technique called bokashi. This allows us to convert the restaurant’s food waste into soil. The composting process is conducted in air-tight containers, to which is added bokashi, which is composed of 5 different microorganisms that all help to break down the waste and release the nutrients, which the plants can then absorb. In 2018, we transformed 2.5 tons of food waste from the hotel’s restaurants into nutrient-rich soil.”
What’s in store next for the garden space?
“We will continue fertilizing the soil throughout the fall and winter with our bokashi compost. In the coming season, we are planning to cultivate several more species of perennial plants that can provide produce long into the autumn season. This year, herbs such as shiso, marigolds, and habanada chilis have grown well, in addition to lettuce and cabbage.”
The rooftop is thriving, and the future is blooming – hotel guests can look forward to locally grown taste experiences from the city's rooftop for many years to come.
This is an edited version of an article that was originally published in our members' magazine. Nights nr. 16 2018
