Fertilize Your Ecosystem with Beer!

Ok, now that you’ve recreated your back yard into an ecosystems paradise for birds, butterflies, frogs, furry little guys and the occasional moose, how about adding to its fertility?

And what better way to fertilize than with beer?

"Fermentation equals civilization." 
— John Ciardi (1916-1986)

Yes, beer! It has been fermenting human creativity, poetry and romance for millennia, and has long been associated with “wildlife”!  Why not use it to fertilize your garden, yard, and wild areas as well?

"Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy." — Benjamin Franklin

Beer is part of warmer weather- any weather will do really- and so is gardening. So why not bring more beer into your yard care? Drink what you can, and pour your stale beer with regret onto your yard. Here’s a couple of neat recipes we found on Do It Yourself for organic fertilizer and yard care.  We’ve interspersed it with poetic odes to beer to bubble it up a bit.

"Instead of water we got here a draught of beer... a lumberer's drink, which would acclimate and naturalize a man at once, which would make him see green, and, if he slept, dream that he heard the wind sough among the pines." 
— Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

"Good ale will make a cat speak." — Old English proverb

Lawn Tonic:
1 can of beer
1 cup of liquid dish soap (not liquid detergent)

2 cups of ammonia
1 cup of molasses or corn syrup 

1/2 cup of liquid lawn food

Apply evenly to the entire lawn every two to three weeks during early evenings and water it well. All mixtures are designed to cover 2500 square feet of lawn surface area. Measure your lawn and adjust the amount as needed.

"You can only drink 30 or 40 glasses of beer a day, no matter how rich you are." — Colonel Adolphus Busch

"I wish we could all have good luck, all the time! I wish we had wings! I wish rain water was beer!" 
— Robert Bolt (A Man for All Seasons)


"A clay tablet dating around 4000 BC excavated in what is today Syria is inscribed what is known as the earliest know beer advertisement. The tablet is adorned with a large-breasted woman holding two goblets and is inscribed with the caption “Drink Ebla Beer - the beer with the heart of a lion!" 
— Zymurgy '98

Organic Fertilizer:
1 can of beer 

1 cup of ammonia 

1 cup of plain liquid dish soap (not liquid detergent)

1 cup any brand liquid lawn fertilizer
1 cup of molasses or corn syrup

Mix these ingredients into a 20 gallon hose end sprayer and apply evenly to the entire lawn in early mornings or later evenings. Applications may be done every two weeks during the entire growing season.

"Keep your libraries, your penal institutions, your insane asylums — give me beer. You think man needs rule, he needs beer. The world does not need morals, it needs beer. The souls of men have been fed with indigestibles, but the soul could make use of beer." — Henry Miller


"The government will fall that raises the price of beer." 
— Czech saying

"Beer is an improvement on water itself." 
— Grant Johnson

Thatch Control:
1 can of beer 

2 cups of any brand of ammonia
1 cup of liquid dish soap (not liquid detergent) 

1 can of regular non-diet cola

Mix these ingredients in a 20 gallon hose end sprayer and evenly apply to the lawn. Heavy thatch may require a second application a week later. Beer contains yeast, enzymes and nutrients that promote good microbial activity, and the same goes for tea, soda, corn syrup and molasses. Ammonia breaks down into nitrates that are readily taken up as a plant nutrient, and nitrogen helps break down thatch. Dish soap helps break the surface tension on water droplets and makes the solution spread over the target plants better.

"I do now remember the poor creature, small beer." — William Shakespeare (King Henry IV)

"They who have drunk beer... fall on their back... for they who get drunk on other intoxicating liquors fall on all parts of their body... it is only those who get drunk on beer who fall on their backs and lie with their faces upwards." 
— Aristotle

"It takes beer to make thirst worthwhile." 
— German Proverb

"And thou shalt give to me health, life, long existence, and prolonged reign, endurance to my every member, sight to my eyes, hearing to my ears, pleasure to my heart daily. And thou shalt give me beer until I am drunk. And thou shalt establish my issue as kings forever and ever." 
— Ramses IV, Prayer to Osiris, 1200 BC

Don’t forget to save some beer for other purposes, too!

For more tips like these or to add your own, visit the original blog.

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