Here’s a quick way to engage children in the garden: First, find out their favorite food (Answer: pizza); second, plant a pizza garden! Everyone loves a piping hot pizza. If you tell children this pizza-shaped plan is all about their toppings, they’ll thoroughly enjoy growing their own oregano, sweet peppers, onions, and eggplants. Who knows, they may even learn to like their vegetables!
One of the most popular plots in the Ruth Rea Howell Family Garden, the centerpiece of the Edible Academy at the New York Botanical Garden, is the pizza plot. “The shape of this garden goes a long way to establish the relationship between the food we eat — sometimes maybe too often, like a slice of pizza — and the plants these foods are made from,” observes Director Toby Adams. “It is an awesome combination of factors for us: to see the pizza shape, to smell the aroma of fresh oregano, to taste a fresh basil leaf, and to feel the resistance of a swollen onion as it’s tugged out of the ground by its leaves.”
Variations on the theme. The pizza garden was sponsored by the famed OTTO pizzeria and designed by Toby Adams and Manager Annie Novak. “The garden has six slices that are arranged to resemble a pie and measures 15 feet in diameter,” notes Toby. A smaller pizza could be constructed in a compact backyard. Or, if space is truly at a premium, the plan can also be applied to a large circular container, like a half-barrel, to create a pizza pot.
Making the “crust.” To make the pizza garden as authentic as possible, Toby and Annie included a stand of wheat as part of the “crust” or outer border of the beds. “We allocate about 1 foot for the wheat on three of our slices and use oregano (used to spice most pizza tomato sauces) to form the outside or ‘crust’ of our other three slices,” says Toby.
Two-foot-wide paths separate the triangular beds and allow easy access for garden chores, harvesting, and inspecting the plots for pests or other problems. To keep the paths clean and weed-free, a mulch of bark, grass clippings, shredded leaves, or straw can be laid between each slice. Stones, bricks, or untreated wood planks can be used to edge the slice-shaped beds if desired.
Selecting toppings. Each slice-shaped bed is planted with a mixture of traditional pizza toppings: tomatoes, sweet peppers, eggplants, onions, basil, and pepperoni (just kidding). If preferred, each bed could instead be dedicated to a single topping. “We always seek out varieties of plants that boast outstanding flavor, and balance that with productivity whenever possible, due to the volume of visitors at the New York Botanical Garden that we share the harvest with,” says Toby. “Where possible, Annie and I made an extra effort to include Italian varieties of the plants, such as ‘Rosa Bianca’ eggplant or ‘Marconi Red’ sweet pepper.”
Versatile tomatoes. Tomatoes do double-duty as a topping and as a star ingredient in pizza sauce. “The tomatoes we selected, also Italian heirlooms, are all varieties best used for saucing,” Toby notes. Other areas of the Ruth Rea Howell Family Garden are planted with varieties that are best eaten fresh. If you want a steady supply of tomatoes to top your pies, consider including a cherry tomato variety such as ‘Sungold’, ‘Ildi’, or ‘Black Cherry’ in your pizza plot. The clumps of aromatic basil and oregano growing in the garden can be clipped and added to the tomato sauce as well as liberally sprinkled on top of the pizza itself.
Spice up your pizza garden with these additional topping plants:
Artichokes. Start seeds indoors in late winter, moving plants to the garden once all risk of frost has passed in late spring. Try ‘Imperial Star’, a variety that will produce tender artichokes the first season and can even be grown in Zone 5.
Arugula. Add a handful of just-picked arugula to the top of a pizza as soon it comes out of the oven for a tasty treat! Any arugula will do, but ‘Astro’ is particularly reliable.
Asparagus. As a perennial vegetable, asparagus is very easy to grow, but it does require a good site. Look for full sun and well-drained soil, and amend with plenty of compost or aged manure before planting. Give the plants three years to establish and then enjoy an eight-week harvest period each spring. Opt for high-producing male cultivars like ‘Jersey Giant’ or ‘Jersey Knight’.
Spicy peppers. For those who prefer their food with a little heat, include some hot peppers such as ‘Early Jalapeño’ or ‘Hot Banana’, a heavy-yielding hybrid that produces 6-inch-long sunny yellow fruits.
1. Spring wheat: ‘Glenn Hard Red’ (1 planting in spring and 1 in midsummer)
2. Greek oregano
3. Onions: ‘Red Zeppelin’ and ‘Walla Walla’
4. Basil: ‘Mostruoso’, ‘Finissimo’, ‘Genovese’, and ‘Purple Ruffles’
5. Tomatoes: ‘Amish Paste’, ‘Rosso Sicilian’, and ‘Martino’s Roma’
6. Eggplants: ‘Rosa Bianca’, ‘Galine’, and ‘Nubia’
7. Sweet peppers: ‘Marconi Red’, ‘King of the North’, ‘Jimmy Nardello’, and ‘Tolli’s Sweet Italian’