Fridheimar is a tomato farm, producing fruit all year ground in glasshouses that are heated using geothermal energy. It is perhaps not the first tourist attraction that you think of when planning a trip to Iceland but it is well worth a visit and it can be included on some tours of The Golden Circle.
It is a most remarkable horticultural venture, plants are grown under sodium lights for 17 hours a day in winter and 14 hours in summer. They have in the region of 10,000 plants in production at any one time and they remain productive for 9 months before replacing. They cultivate their own seedlings to be used as replacement plants.
Bees are imported from Holland to pollinate the plants. They have 600 bees and an individual bee can pollinate up to 2000 flowers a day. The bees must be replaced after 8 weeks.
No pesticides are used in the greenhouses. Fortunately there are not many natural diseases of tomato plants in Iceland. When problems arise they use biological control rather than chemicals, they import Mirid bugs to control pests.
There is a restaurant/café and gift shop where you can buy everything tomato. None of the production from Fridheimar is exported so if you want to try the fruits of their labour here is the place to do it. Lunch is served in the restaurant surrounded by tomato plants from 12.00 to 16.00.
They started breeding horses at Fridheimar in 1995 and there is now an equestrian centre on site. Icelandic horses are a hardy breed and you can see why as they a perfectly capable of surviving the Icelandic winter. The importation of horses into Iceland is not permitted so this is the breed that you will see on your travels round the country.
