How to Grow a Pizza Garden

Whatever you enjoy pilled on top of your homemade pizza, there is a good chance you can grow some, if not all of the ingredients you need at home. You don’t even have to have a huge garden to achieve this. Many classic pizza topping veggies grow really well in containers.

Tomato, peppers, eggplant, and Italian herbs are a pretty good start for a delicious vegan pizza. These can be grown pretty easily, even for beginners. Get some dough rising, turn the oven on, and head out to your garden to harvest some fresh veggies.

Tomatoes

Source: Audrey’s Little Farm/YouTube

Granted, not everyone requires tomatoes for their pizza, but it sure is a good place to start. Now, what type should you plant?

Paste tomatoes, such as Roma, are much denser and fleshier than slicing tomatoes and have less water and fewer seeds. For this reason, they reduce down much more quickly and turn into sauce much more readily. You are going to want some nice slicing tomatoes for your pizza toppings.

You can start tomatoes from seed or buy little plant starts in the spring. Start tomatoes from seed indoors about 6-8 weeks before the last frost of the year. You can also direct sow once soil temperatures have warmed up.

Once you have seedlings with at least two sets of adult leaves, you can plant them outside with some fertilizer. Make sure that you are clear of the last frost. Nighttime temperatures need to be consistently above 50°F with daytime temperatures being ideally in the 70s or higher.

If your seedlings or plant starts are leggy, plant the stem deep in the soil. New roots will form from the buried stems. Your tomato plants will need to be in a sunny spot in your garden and given something to grow up in they are a vining variety (indeterminate).

Make sure that your plants get about an inch and a half of water a week and keep them tied up and pruned.

Check out this amazing recipe for Roasted Tomato Pizza Sauce.

Peppers

Source: The Gardening Channel With James Prigioni/YouTube

Juicy slices of bell pepper, maybe some crushed pepper flakes, or even pickled jalapeño slices go really well on a homemade pizza.

Peppers are a heat-loving plant. Spicy peppers can be picked throughout the summer season whereas bell peppers tend to be ready for harvest nearer the end of summer.

Just like tomatoes, pepper seeds can be started indoors about 6-8 weeks before the last frost of the year, and then plant the seedlings out after the last frost. Again, you need to wait until nighttime temperatures are above 50°F.

Plant your pepper plants in a really sunny spot in the garden and give them something to grow up such as a cage or cane. Bell pepper fruits can get rather large and heave and pull the plants over or break limbs.  Give each plant about 18-24 inches of growing space. They will also enjoy some nitrogen-rich fertilizer.

Eggplant

Source: The Gardening Channel With James Prigioni/YouTube

Eggplants are another sun-loving plant in the same family as tomatoes and peppers. Eggplants are really fun to grow and produce the most stunning fruits.

Once again, get your seeds planted indoors about 6-8 weeks before the last frost date. Then, once temperatures have warmed up, you can plant your seedling or plant starts from the nursery in your garden or containers.

Plant your eggplants in a sunny spot with well-draining soil. Keep the soil moist but not water-logged. A good layer of mulch around the bases of the plants will help with this.

You can harvest your fruits at any time, but you don’t want to leave them too long. They should be firm, with taught, shiny skin. If you press your finger into the flesh it should stay indented for a little while, rejuvenating slowly.

Herbs

Source: Epic Gardening/YouTube

Don’t forget your Italian-style herbs. Who wants a pizza without oregano and basil? Not only can you top your pizza with fresh herbs, but instead of a tomato sauce, you could slather your pizza crust with a generous layer of homemade pesto.

Sweet basil is super to easy to grow from seed or from a cutting. Oregano is most easily grown from a cutting. See if a friend has some oregano growing n their garden, and either ask for a root division or just take a sprig and pop it into a jar of water until roots begin to sprout. You can then plant it out as usual.

Plant your basil seeds indoors about 8 weeks before the last frost of the year. Plant them out once nighttime temperatures are consistently above 50 °F. You can also direct sow them in pots or in the ground after the last frost.

Basil needs lots of sunlight and moist soil. Harvest regularly to encourage more growth. Keeping your basil plants pruned back will also help to slow down flowering. Keep any flowers that start to emerge clipped back to encourage more leaf growth.  This is, after all, what you need to make pesto.

Related Content:

• A Guide to Dehydrating Your Summertime Herbs and Greens
• 5 Medicinal Herbs to Grow in Pots
• What is an Herbal Lawn and How to Grow One
• 7 Evergreen Herbs to Include in Your Garden for Year-Round Color and Harvesting
• 15 Plant-Based Pizza Recipes to Make for Your Next Pizza Party
• 15 Incredible Homemade Pizzas With Veggie Toppings

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