Family farm at Lake Malaren

Södermanland

14 • Updated 22 days ago

Hi! Welcome to share our life by the shores of Lake Mälaren, with ecological, certified cultivation both in greenhouses and in open fields. We also have a small orchard including berries and apple trees. A large part of our production is reserved for our share-farming members in our CSA (community-supported agriculture), which we deliver to every week from April through October. Many of the vegetables are also served in our restaurant, and some are sold in our farm shop. You are welcome to share both weekends and everyday life with us, our two children and their families, as well as our team who work here year-round. In addition to us, Mats and Karin, our son Johan lives here with his family, as does our daughter Evelina. They have their own houses and work elsewhere, but mostly we funkctions as a community. Work tasks vary from day to day and depending on the season. They include weeding and caring for plants, harvesting different crops, washing vegetables, packing produce for the CSA members, as well as other chores that are part of running a small organic garden. We start work at 8:00 a.m., then take a coffee break at 9:00 or 9:30 depending on the season, and have lunch at 12:30 p.m. There is an afternoon coffee break around 3:00 p.m. when you finish for the day. Dinner is usually at 7:00 p.m., and we take turns preparing it. You live in one of our small guest houses and use the bath room i our house. Good organic food is importand for us and we mostly eat vegatables from our own produce, organic meat and some times fish from the lake. Our farm is situated quite close to Stockholm. Its 2 km of walk/bike to the bus stop and then 15 min with the bus to Strängnäs where trainstation is. In your free time, you can borrow the canoes, the kayak, the pedal boat, or the rowing boat. Or you can simply lie on the dock and relax. We have forest right behind the houses (unless you are staying in the forest cabin), and there are also beautiful hiking trails nearby. Uppsala, Västerås, Strängnäs, Enköping, as well as Stockholm, are all well worth a visit.

Learning opportunities

Vegetable farming

Fruit or nut farming

Forestry

Beekeeping

Wild foraging

Flower farming

Vegetable or fruit preservation

Bakery

Food justice / sovereignty

Methods or systems

Biological pest control

Community-supported agriculture (CSA)

Holistic management

Host type

Production farm

Certified organic

40 Hectares | 98.8 Acres

Accommodation

2 WWOOFers

Bedroom

Camper / RV

Cabin / Mobile-home

Children not accepted

Pets not accepted

Meals

Omnivore

Vegetarian

Length of stay

3-4 weeks

Over a month

Karin & Mats

Member since 2009

Languages spoken: English, German, Swedish

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Mon

Tue

Wed

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Sat

Response rate: 88% Response time: typically within 4 days

Protomaps | © OpenStreetMap

Södermanland

From Stockholm: take the train to Strängnäs. Take bus 876 direction Enköping. Tell the busdriver that you want to go to Morrarövägen. Then it´s 2 km to Hornudden. After 500m you will reach a sign announcing Hornudden, 1,5 km, whereupon one turns right and

My past WWOOFers

Himari

September 2026 • Japan

Akiko

August 2026 • Japan

Ava

August 2026 • California, United States

Cloé

July 2026 • 73 - Savoie, France

Sacha

July 2026 • 91 - Essonne, France

1 - 5 / 6

Feedback

Sacha

France • August 2026

I spend three weeks in July at Hornudden, and I absolutely loved my stay ! Karin & Mats welcomed me warmly and explained how the farm operates and is organized. There were various accommodation options available, and I chose the little cabin in the woods for its wild charm ! Mats and Karin ask for a five-day work week, and 2 flexibles days off. We get two breaks ("fika") where we eat very well (morning and afternoon) with the other staff and Stina the cat. The only downside is that buses don't run very often, especially the weekend. So if you want to visit cities, I advice you to be organized and take your days off during the week. The scenery is idyllic ; you can borrow their boats to go out on Lake Mälaren, walk in the forest... The atmosphere is pleasant, it’s a lively place (with a shop and restaurant) that sees a steady stream of customers. The produces are wholesome, with generous portions (a special mention for Oscar’s delicious cake !). Most meals are prepared by the hosts, but you can cook for yourself as well. I’d recommend liking tomatoes, because you’ll be eating them a lot lol. There is plenty to do at Hornudden : most of the time, the work involves harvesting tomatoes and berries, weeding, or watering the plants. Some tasks are a bit repetitive, but that’s part of gardening. The staff are very open and talk about all sorts of things ; if you have questions, they’re happy to help. Thanks again to Mats, Karin and all the WWOOFERS/staff for the warm welcome !

Ava

United States • August 2026

We really enjoyed our experience at Hornudden. Karin and Mats are very knowledgeable, hard working, and kind people who also made the time to ensure we learned various farm tasks. Their profile description on this website is very accurate, and as we were there in the summer we got to pick the variety of berries grown and do some planting along with other types of work. The area is also very beautiful and we admired how they take care of it!

Lilou

France • May 2023

I stayed at Hornudden for a period of 4 weeks. It was my first woofing experience and honestly I couldn't dream about better. Karin and Mats are very kind people, always willing to give their knowledge. The people that work with them are all lovely, and nice, the place is beautiful. The work is great I have done many things. I truly recommand this farm and I will definetely come back !

Lin

Sweden • October 2019

Mat is a school teacher for chemistry . Karin is the real manager of the farm. It's a very nice place with amazing views. The farm has 25 kinds of tomatoes. Three kinds of cucumbers. Many kinds of pumpkins. Zukinis, apple trees and plum trees. Melons grow in the green House and many kinds of herbs. Thank you very much for taking me and giving me the opportunity to meet their family members, their employees, their gusts and other volunteers. Hope to meet them again one day _ alina, Tom, maya, the girl from Swithland, auhalia, viktor, michalea, Todd, oscar, marlin, David, and many other people. Thank you very much for your help. Hope to see you again. Tack sa mycket.

Ufuk

Belgium • June 2019

We absolutely don’t recommend this farm. We initially planned to stay one month but we left after ten days. Here are the problems we had to face: We had to move houses several times. They don’t tell you in advance when the change will happen. They change the planning everyday (where you sleep, where you cook, where you shower). So it’s really hard to relax. You have to go to them all the time to ask what is going to happen next. Even for some food like fruits you have to ask every time you want one. And there’s a restricted number of fruits you can eat. One woofer ate 3 apples one day so they hid the fruits from all woofers. The last days we stayed in a house where they didn’t want us to use the kitchen. The only kitchen available is the staff kitchen but they close it in the evening. So you don’t have access to food until the morning. They have two houses that they rent through a Swedish Airbnb equivalent. They asked us to clean one of the houses for a whole day. We did it without complaining. Mats was unhappy with some of the cleaning. So the next day for some parts he wanted us to clean again. He showed us how the house wasn’t ready for guests and that we had do it better. After trying to make us feel guilty, we responded that as woofers we were here to learn organic farming. Mats was angry so in the evening the same day he brought a dirty caravan without water for us to move in. We would then have to sleep there, separated from the other woofer, who was sleeping in the house. Mats and Karin’s words and actions (separating us from the other woofers, bringing the caravan etc) felt demeaning and humiliating. We left the farm before moving in the caravan.

Reply from Karin & Mats

Hej Ufuk! We had an agreement before you arrived about where you and Alexia were going to sleep at your stay at our farm and we had promised you a caravan so that you could have your privacy. A caravan close to the house – but without water and kitchen. When you arrived we had space in one of our houses for renting and you lived there for around a week. After that we gave you the task to clean the house because paying guests were booked and we offered you to move, together with our other volunteer, to the other guest house (the best house on the farm). You said yes. We could see that none of you both (Alexia and Ufuk) were use to clean a house and we see it as our responsibility to teach our volunteers. Doesn´t matter if it´s to clean a house, plant onions och seed herbs. We are the teachers until the volunteer shows that he or she has more knowledge than we have. That happens and we are ready to learn new things – all the time. We run a business and everything on the farm is a part of it. Garden, café and houses but for you it was humiliating to clean the house you had lived in because other guests were going to live in it. We have totally different perspective … To be a volunteer at a company is to take part in the tasks that are needed and you are asked to do. As you only were here for a little bit more than a week you never came into our routines – to be honest we didn´t feel that you wanted to. About the cooking – you only cooked two days in the same house with the same kitchen. What was the problem for you? The other days you were served your meals. Were we, Mats and Karin, cook is up to us because we have to be very flexible to manage our working days which some days are very long. How we do that only affects volunteers in that they are served the lunch or dinner in different places – without any more obligations than to come and eat. And hopefully enjoy the food. About apples during May. We have eaten all our own apples and we usually don’t buy apples at all and specially not imported apples. We try to live sustainable and eat locally, but we sometimes do small exceptions. There is always a reason but you didn´t ask for that – instead you got angry. We give our volunteers: breakfast, fika at 9.30, lunch, fika in the afternoon and dinner. If you want to have/eat more or other products than we can offer - you have the possibility to buy your own fruit. From our perspective you can’t demand to get as much fruit as you want – specially when it´s not fruit season. We don´t buy chocolate for those who “need” that either. And yes – when you are a volunteers at our farm you have to ask the first time. Because you don’t know how it works. But when you have understood and learnt there will be more “freedom”. When we can see that you understand how it works and you can appreciate the advantages you have as a volunteer at our farm then you will hopefully be a part of the team instead of watching and judging from a corner. You have to remember that it´s our home you come to and we want to decide what is to be done and how but of course that can be a problem when the language is the barrier and easy makes misunderstandings. That we could see from our time together with Ufuk- What you are writing is more about how you felt and not how it was. From our perspective a lot of what you write is lies but your feelings we can’t take from you. You can keep them or try to see that it´s other perspectives. At last – the plan was not that you should move in to a caravan as a punishment - it was that we should keep our agreement and give you the caravan we promised. Of course the plan was to clean in before, but you couldn´t know because you never got to know us and understand how we are and how we act. But we can understand that you preferred to live in the nice guest house with best view, shower, sauna and fire place but we couldn´t take the risk that you could say no to clean that house after your stay in that house for a week to. All the best and hope you will develop your way of saying “good bye” with out screaming and yelling to your hosts.

Camillo

Italy • April 2019

Beautiful place, beautiful people and beautiful accommodation. They love their work and for this they ask seriousness and concentration during the work. You can learn a lot of things e leave the place better than you were before.