QUALITY - TRACEABILITY - AUTHENTICITY

Our Farm

Garston is a small village located at the bottom of the South Island of New Zealand.

The McNamee family have owned land just outside of this village for many years running a sheep farm which is now being diversified to grow hops as well - a complementary two-tier farming system.

 

Our Gardens

  • Tree-surrounded garden (TS)

    Once upon a time, this little garden was home to just 50 trial hop plants - a small experiment tucked beneath the shelter of trees.

    What started as a simple idea over a beer has grown into something much bigger. This first garden, now 5 hectares of thriving hops, is where the Garston Hops journey began.

    This garden contains the most mature plants of all our hop varieties - Motueka, Nelson Sauvin, Rakau, NZ Cascade and Riwaka.

  • Rabbit-board garden (RB)

    Back in the late 1800s and early 1900s, rabbits were no fluffy novelty in New Zealand - the were full-blown menace. Without natural predators (thanks to our islands isolation and unique ecosystem), their population exploded wreaking havoc on farms. The solution?
    Rabbit boards were established in every town and region to manage the chaos. This garden is situated opposite the house where the rabbit-board staff lived.

    Living on a remote island in the Pacific isn’t always easy - but it’s a big part of what makes New Zealand special. Clean, green and bursting with stories of resilience and ingenuity, every piece of land here has its history.

    This garden contains a big chunk of our Nelson Sauvin and Rakau plants.

  • Fescue garden (FS)

    This garden is appropriately named after its not so glorious past. You see, this patch of land used to grow fescue grass seed. While Fescue might be a hero on lush green lawns, it’s a bit of a villain on sheep farms. Why? It’s not the most nutritious feed for our woolly friends, so it happily got the boot and now we are growing something so much better.

    This garden contains a selection of your favourite New Zealand varieties - Motueka, Nelson Sauvin and Rakau.

  • Peter Naylor garden (PN)

    Peter Naylor garden is our latest hop plot. It sits right on the boundary to our wonderful neighbours, the Naylors, who have been here longer than we remember. Peter is the quiet type, but when there’s an engineering job to tackle, he’s always there to lend a hand. As well as his handy son who we call 0800 Uncle Hamish as he’s always only a ring away and always there to help out when we need him. Appropriately named in honour of our amazing neighbours.

    This garden contains an exciting new crop of NZ Cascade and Riwaka to boost those numbers that we can’t seem to grow enough of!