How to Plant a Pizza Garden

Creating an Italian masterpiece is as simple as running out to the yard to pick fresh toppings for your pizza from a productive pie-shaped bed. Here's how to make it happen.

Filed under: Vegetable Gardening, Vegetables

HGTV Family Garden Club Features Pizza Garden

As a rule, kids love pizza. Making your own with toppings grown in the garden is a great way to demonstrate how easy it is to include super-fresh food in a meal. This is also a fantastic opportunity to introduce new flavors to your child's palate.

Materials Needed:

a sunny spot in the yard with well-drained soil
edging for "pizza" outline (metal, plastic or wood)
seedlings of your favorite toppings: tomato, bell pepper, chives (or onions), rosemary, basil, oregano, parsley

compost
water

Choose the Size and Location of the Bed

Choose a site that offers full sun. Decide how many of each kind of plant you want to grow, based on their spacing requirements (below), and outline a circular bed that will give each enough room. (The bed created here was 8 feet in diameter.)

Check the tag that comes with each transplant for specific guidelines. Here's a rough idea for how much space to allow for each plant:

tomato: at least 2 feet; for larger varieties, 2-1/2 feet
bell pepper: 12 to 15 inches
onions: 4 to 5 inches apart
basil, rosemary: 15 to 18 inches
thyme, oregano: 10 to 12 inches

Prepare the Soil

Remove weeds and dig in plenty of organic matter like finished compost. If your soil is very dense or hard clay, consider using a raised bed and fill it with a combination of bagged garden soil and compost.