Design Your Own Brewer’s Garden
Every homebrewer likes to try new recipes. The brewer who is also a gardener increases his opportunities to unite two hobbies by using home-grown produce to create new and different flavors. The vegetable or fruit ingredients for pumpkin ale, chile beer, raspberry wheat, and other libations can be grown in your own backyard. The scope of your brewer’s garden is only limited by the imagination.
In some cases it may take imagination to design a garden that will produce sufficient ingredients of good quality for inclusion in homebrew. Generally, from urban areas to the plains, even beginning gardeners can obtain reasonably good results with a little planning and common sense. There are a few rather basic things to take into account before setting spade to earth that will help ensure a measure of success.
First, have some large paper, a ruler, and pencil available. Many of us are not artists or designers, so expect a few early false starts. Then select an area that receives plenty of sun. If you think it may get too much sun in the heat of the summer don’t worry, you can design around that issue a bit later. Select an area you intend to use as a garden and ask the following questions: What goes on near the proposed site? (Lawn treatments?) Are there any chemicals there? (Pool runoff?) What was there before? (An old coal bin, leakage from an old oil tank?)
If there are no problems with the area you selected, measure the plot and draw it on a piece of the paper. A scale of one inch to one foot is generally quite helpful, but use whatever scale with which you feel comfortable. Then think about what you want to grow. If you want to plant in beds, allow up to four feet for the beds and two feet for walkways. You can probably do with less, but if this is your first attempt, plan big, learn from experience, and modify next season.
What Does Your Garden Grow?
After a suitable area has been selected and sketched, it’s time to decide what to grow. This decision will be influenced by what your plot has to offer in the way of soil conditions, sun, and drainage. Soil may be light and sandy, rich red, or anything in between. In general if your soil is relatively dark and will grow grass, you have something to start with and that you can modify relatively easily if you either need or want to. Various additions such as manure, compost, bone, or blood meal will help your garden soil. All of these additives are available at a local garden center. Compost and mulch are called “gardener’s gold” for good reason. Organic material helps both clay and sandy soils. In general it is best to have relatively rich soil that is well composted and manured.
Obviously planting time will vary with geographic location and local conditions. Generally, wait until after the last danger of frost has passed. In New England they usually waited until Memorial Day. In Oklahoma folks will sometimes plant as early as two weeks after Easter. It all depends. Remember that the weather varies from region to region and year to year. Ask someone who has lived in the area for a few years or someone who gardens.
The plant most brewers want to grow is hops. The ability to grow hops is somewhat limited by geography but more so by the ability to produce conditions comparable to 30° to 55° north latitude. Normally planted after the last danger of frost has passed but not later than late May, the plant will reach its full height of 15 to 25 feet in late June and then begin to produce side arms and flowers. At least 120 frost-free days are required for flowering. Direct sun is needed (as much sun as possible combined with a lot of watering), as is a wet spring followed by a warm summer.
Roots should be planted two per hill, with buds pointing up and covered with one inch of soil. Hills should be at least three feet apart if the hops are of the same variety and five to seven feet apart if they are of different varieties. The first year will produce a small crop as the plant expends most of its energy establishing a large root system. The second year will produce more flowers for drying and brewing. Because the plants grow rather large, a strong support system is needed. Look for space along a fence, garage, or out-building. If none of these is available, a support system may be constructed out of twine, baling wire, and a stake or pole as shown in the figure on page 42. Some experts recommend that hops vines be allowed to grow up to their full height; the important point is to keep the vines high enough to keep the flowers from touching the ground and make harvesting possible. Keeping the plants up six feet or so will generally be sufficient.
Hops, the Center of Attention
Because of the space and structure needs of hops, they are a good place to begin the design of your brew garden. If you are concerned about too much sun in the heat of the summer, the hops can be used to create shade for other plants.
If you are constrained by space or the location of fences and/or out-buildings, hops can use those structures. If you are a renter who can’t do much yard modification, you might try growing your hops along an old, unused clothesline in the backyard. Wherever they go remember that hop plants have a huge root system. Give them plenty of room in a well-drained area since the root system cannot tolerate being waterlogged.
Let’s say that you have a 20-foot-by-20-foot plot that receives direct sun all day. One option is to start with hops and their associated support structure and use them to provide shade during the hottest part of the summer when they are at their fullest. A possible design is illustrated below (Basic Design of a Brew Garden).
In a rural area a homebrewer with sufficient land and a well could conceivably provide or produce every ingredient in a batch of homebrew. Many of us live in urban or suburban areas and must content ourselves with growing only a portion of what we put in our beer. This basic design is one example of how the brew garden may be integrated. The hops provide some shade for other plants, such as tomatoes, that may not need direct sun all day. The hops can also provide some shade for herbs that require some level of protection from the full sun.
This design is one possibility, but many configurations for your garden are possible and should be considered. In particular those who rent and are not able to change the yard need to be a bit more creative. The Urban Brew Gardens illustration (opposite, page 45) shows two garden layouts based on limited physical characteristic of the yard and restricted modifications. The top is from West Virginia and the bottom is from Oklahoma.
Preparation Tips
During the winter place well decomposed compost and/or manure over the garden area. Let the sun and snow do the work; nutrients of the manure will get into the soil during the spring thaw. Do not work the soil until spring when the ground is well thawed and reasonably dry. Working it while it’s wet will only compact the soil. Be careful not to shovel or plow snow containing de-icing chemicals or salt onto the garden area.They may harm your plants’ root systems.
Hops are a good starting point for soil treatment. An area particularly well fertilized and manured is best for hops. From that starting point modifications can be made for other plants. Hops need good drainage, so a bit of sand will help keep the soil a bit loose and aid in drainage. Sand also helps coriander and horseradish. Check with your county Cooperative Extension office before adding sand. You may be better off improving the soil with compost. Most of the other plants you might grow in a brew garden will do well with the initial treatment for hops, just without the sand. After harvesting the flowers don’t forget the vines. Before they dry, the vines can be worked to make “grapevine”-like wreaths.
The Supporting Cast
Other plants need some special consideration but probably not on the same level as hops.
Pumpkins, for instance, need significant room, full sun, and a well-fertilized soil. Generally two hills of pumpkins placed side by side about three feet apart will need six to seven feet of room to allow the plant to grow. When planting pumpkins for a brew garden be sure to plant the sweet or pie variety. Some varieties are selected for making jack-o-lanterns; they would not be as good for brewing as the sweet type used for pies. Pie pumpkins usually have a smooth outer skin and are smaller than the type used for carving. Your kids can help you here. If you grow the smaller pie pumpkins, let your children paint them at Halloween. You only want the inside for your ale, so let them have fun with the outside.
Peppers like direct sun, the more the better. You can have much success with a variety of peppers in the same area (from Hungarian wax — very hot — and jalapeños to chiles and green bell peppers. But don’t plant too soon. A late chill can be deadly.
Mint seems to like the morning sun best and shade in the afternoon. Mint will tolerate poor drainage and likes heavy watering. Grown for commercial purposes, mint can exhaust the soil in four years. For the purposes of cultivating forbrewing, manuring the mint heavily in the fall and using some potash will be sufficient to provide enough mint for the brewer. Trimming the bushes encourages growth during the season. One note of caution with mint: It needs to be controlled. Mint plants can grow to unmanageable proportions and actually take over part of the yard. When this happens the plant needs to be significantly trimmed and part of the roots must be removed.
Berries are a bit of a different animal. Unless you are very patient it may be best to purchase small berry plants from a local garden center. Raspberry, blueberry, blackberry, and other similar bushes like rich soil and require approximately three to four feet between bushes. They are light feeders; a good manuring in the fall will do them very well. Bushes may not produce immediately. Keep them well watered, weeded, and wait until next year.
If you decide to integrate your brew garden into the family plot, remember that different plants need different conditions. Placing hops, garlic, and pumpkin close to each other makes good sense, because they all like rich soil and full sun and need significant amounts of water. Mint also enjoys that type of environment but may spread so aggressively that it takes over. It may be best to keep mint separate from other garden items. Placing herbs that do not require full sun in the shade of the larger hop vines makes sense and saves room.
Be Organic
The more organic your garden is the fewer risks you take of ingesting potentially harmful chemicals. Preparing the garden with compost or manure is certainly more labor intensive than using chemicals, but the exercise will make last winter’s brewing efforts taste even better.
Herbicides will get into the soil and on your produce. Using mulch will inhibit weeds, and pulling them when they appear is preferable to chemical treatments. Straw is a good mulch because it allows water through easily and breaks down relatively quickly. Another option is to place two or three sheets of newspaper around plants. The paper will stop weeds from growing by blocking out sunlight while allowing moisture to pass through. By the end of the season the paper will have composted enough to become part of the soil. The ink has little affect on the soil.
Pesticides should be avoided. Depending on the pest a mild soap solution or vinegar and water may be useful sprayed or lightly smeared on the plants. The juice of the habanero pepper has also been known to work as an insect (and spouse and dog) repellent. There are also good insects such as lady bugs that will get after the nasties in the garden. Lady bugs can be ordered commercially in the spring.
It is a bit of work to start the garden. The planning stages are fun. The turning of the soil can become tiring. Take it slow, start small, and have one of your homebrews when it starts to get hot. If you enjoy the first season, increase the size of the plot in the fall and then again in the following spring. Nothing says you need to get everything done in one season. After all, you didn’t become an all-grain brewer after your first kit. Gardening, like brewing, is something to be enjoyed. It is another outlet and something your family can enjoy with you.
