Create a Pizza Garden
Plant a Unique Landscape Feature Made of the Ingredients for Pizza
This is a fun activity to involve kids in gardening - or to do for yourself, as a unique focal point in a vegetable garden.
Pizza, of course, doesn’t grow in a garden – but many of the ingredients that go into a great homemade pie do - and what better way could there be to connect the children in your life to where their favorite foods actually begin! Creating a “Pizza Garden” is one fun way to plant a kid friendly garden in your backyard…or even to just connect with your own “inner child” with a great feature for any home landscape.
What you need:
- 4 tomato seedlings
- 15 - 20 Garlic bulbs suitable for planting
- 15 – 20 onion sets
- 6-pack of chive seedlings
- 6-pack of basil seedlings
- 6-pack of oregano seedlings
- 6- pack of Italian parsley seedlings
- 4, 4-ft. stakes for tying up the tomatoes
- Twine for tying the tomatoes to the stakes
Planting Instructions:
1) Cultivate a wide patch of garden in a sunny spot (one that gets at least 6 hours of sunlight a day). How wide? Well, the measurements can be a little flexible. But, for a good show, you will need at least a 6 ft. by 6 ft. space.
2) Insert one of the stakes into the CENTER of the space. To this stake, attach a piece of twine that reaches to the very end of the cultivated space. MEASURE this length into THREE EQUAL PARTS and make a loose knot at each of these measures..
(For example: If you have dug up a 6 ft by 6 ft square, you will make a loose knot at 2 ft, at 4ft and at the very end of the string.
3) Insert another one of the stakes into the FIRST knot nearest the center. Using the stake and twine arrangement as a simple scribing tool, draw a circle around the first stake. Then insert the stake into the SECOND knot and make a second. Finally, insert the stake at the END of the twine and scribe the third circle. You should have THREE concentric circles, equally spaced, emanating out from the center stake.
4) Plant the 4 tomato plants into the center circle (evenly spaced) and stake them with the four stakes.
5) Plant the garlic bulbs in ONE HALF of the SECOND concentric circle, and the onion sets in the OTHER HALF of the SECOND concentric circle.
6) Divide the outside circle into FOUR equal sections and plant the Oregano, Basil, Parsley and Chives into each of the respective sections.
7) Water well and tend as you would all of these plants.
As the garden grows, harvest it – and enjoy the pizzas you can make from all the fresh ingredients!
