Get Kids Gardening at Home With a Family Project
Planting a pizza garden is a great way to get kids enthusiastic about gardening at home. You’ll enjoy the ease of a mini vegetable garden and the plants you grow will also stretch for including in other recipes.
Consider beginning this project with a “pizza planting party,” by working together as a family to plant your garden and then celebrating with a homemade pizza that includes some of the ingredients you’ll plant to harvest from your pizza garden. Here’s how you get started:
Mark your pizza garden: Gardening at home always begins with planning, but this one is easy, because you’re about to plant your pizza garden in the shape of a pizza, with one ingredient in each of six or eight “slices.” Choose a six-foot or eight-foot square area that will receive six-to-eight hours of sun each day. Mark the center of your garden area, and then use a mallet to drive a small stake into the center of your garden area. Using a string tied to the stake, mark the border of a circle around your garden area.
Use rocks to mark the perimeter of your circle, and then mark your “slices” that will separate each area for planting. Turn your soil to about one foot of depth and mix in some organic mulch and manure to ensure healthy growth of your pizza ingredients.
Plant your veggies: Ideally, you’ll plant three herbs and three vegetables in your pizza. Oregano, basil and parsley are all good choices for herbs, and in your veggie section you can plant onions, tomatoes and peppers. For each herb and your peppers, you can include two to three plants in your wedge. Onions can be planted closely, and then you’ll want only one tomato plant in that space that you have.
Choose peppers according to your tastes. Maybe you’d like one bell pepper plant and then a hotter variety for a little extra spice. When it comes to tomatoes, choose Roma or another variety of paste tomato. It’s easy to make sauce from Roma tomatoes with a little olive oil, garlic, oregano and basil.
Have some fun: Gardening at home with kids requires a little patience, but you can also have a lot of fun. Besides the joy of playing in the dirt, kids can also decorate their pizza garden. Scatter some straw to look like mozzarella cheese, and then place a few small terra cotta planters on your “pizza” to look like pepperoni.
You’ll enjoy harvesting your pizza ingredients and your kids will love inviting friends over for pizza made from ingredients they grew themselves.
Help make gardening at home a success with an organized pizza garden. Include Kincaid Plant Markers in your pizza garden to give each of your ingredients the care they need to thrive. Take a look at the high-quality products we offer!
