Grow Your Own Pizza Garden

How to grow your own pizza garden – a fun and practical idea to get adults enthused about gardening. Oh and it’s a project you could do with the children and grandchildren over the summer holidays too. 😉

We’ll start with the main ingredients to grow in your pizza garden; then look at some extra plants you could add. After that I’ll give you some growing tips and ideas for designing the pizza garden (I’ve included a couple of planting plans for you). Whilst you can start preparing your garden in the autumn ready for spring planting, my emphasis is more on enabling you to get going straight away this summer. It doesn’t have to be a permanent feature, but you could make it so it is.

As usual there are links at the end for blogs with more info on particular plants, tips and ideas, plus free gardening printables for you and the children to keep track of what you’re planting and growing.

The Ingredients needed to Grow Your Own Pizza Garden

As the pizza ingredients are plants you can grow, it is by definition vegetarian! But that doesn’t prevent you from adding meat to the finished dish before you eat it. And of course, pizzas generally have cheese or vegan cheese on them, so I’ve included thoughts on cheese and pizza dough further down.

But firstly, a list of the basic plants for a pizza Margherita, possibly the most popular pizza! Then we’ll look at extra plants that you may love to have on your pizza. Brief cultivation notes are included with these, then the general ‘how to grow your own pizza garden’ tips follow.

Basil
Garlic
Onion
Oregano / Marjoram
Pepper, black
Tomatoes

Basil

Obviously for our pizza garden we should grow one of the Mediterranean varieties, of basil, which are Ocimum basilicum. I’d suggest any or all of these three.

Sweet basil, Genovese basil is the most often used herb. Neapolitan basil, Ocimum basilicum Napolitano, has larger, slightly crinkled leaves and a spicier flavour. Purple basil, Ocimum basilicum purpurescens, would add an interesting splash of colour to both your pizza garden and finished pizza.

Garden Teacher Tip

If you need the plant straight away and there are none at the garden centre, you’ll probably find sweet basil sold as a living herb in the supermarket. Yes, this will work too! Rather than carefully teasing out each individual plant, divide the pots worth of small plants into 4, 6 or 8 (depending on pot size) and plant as these small groups.

Garlic

If you’re wanting to create and grow your own pizza garden over the summer holidays, you may struggle to find garlic growing in a pot to purchase. Either omit this one or try adding Garlic chives, Allium tuberosum instead. As you’d expect from the name, these chives taste lightly of garlic rather than straight forward onion.

If you have time to grow garlic, Allium sativum, plant bulbs in the autumn either straight into the ground, or, if you have a wet soil, in modules to plant out in spring. Some varieties can be planted in spring; they mature quicker than the traditional ones which can take 6 months.

Onion

Onions, Allium cepa, bulb onion are essential because you’ll need these to add flavour to your passata, or tomato paste base. You will probably struggle to buy onion plants in growth during the summer as that’s their harvest time. You’ll need to sow seeds in the autumn or spring. Alternatively grow from sets (baby onions) which can be started off in autumn or early spring.

If you’re wanting to grow your own pizza garden over the summer, you could cheat and use clumping or Welsh onions. Allium fistulosum, instead. These you will certainly find as a plant in the herb section. They look like spring onions stuck together and you cook with both the leaf and the bulb.

Oregano / Marjoram

These closely related herbs are often confused – not that it generally matters too much. Oregano usually refers to Origanum vulgare. This has a more pungent flavour than marjoram, Origanum majorana, which is sweeter and milder. You could grow either or both.

Although marjoram tends to be a small upright plant, oregano may get lax and flop a bit from its upright pose. However, if you’re clipping the herbs regularly to use them in cooking this should keep them neat.

Pepper, black

Black pepper,, is a vining plant from India, so unless you have a heated greenhouse or conservatory, you are highly unlikely to be able to grow this one. There are alternatives you can try, for example Szechuan pepper plants, Zanthoxylum simulans, or even Alexanders seeds, but you’d more likely be foraging for this British native than growing it (although you could grow it from seed).

Tomatoes

One of the first plants that many gardeners grow as children and when starting out, and none the worse for that! You may have some already growing in pots that you haven’t got round to planting out yet (don’t feel guilty, me too), so why not use these. You may well be able to pick up some Italian plum tomato plants at a nursery or garden centre. NB If you know blight is a likely problem for you, look for resistant varieties such as Crimson plum (vining) or Celano (bush, baby plum) just to make your life that bit easier.

Bush tomatoes will generally fit into the space better than vining / cordon varieties. If you only have or can find cordon tomatoes, then place them in the middle or where they won’t shade the other plants too much. Use a teepee of bamboo or hazel canes, or a pretty obelisk.

And for that Italian vibe, you do really need red tomatoes. For the tomato paste, or passata, San Marzano tomatoes are the best variety.

Grow Your Own Pizza Garden – Popular toppings you may like to include

Plants only! Just a few ideas in case you wanted to add more edibles to your basic pizza garden. I haven’t included mushrooms as they need to be grown under cover where the temperature and moisture levels can be controlled.

Capers
Olives
Rocket / Arugula
Rosemary
Spinach
Sweet Peppers
Thyme

Capers

It is the unopened flower buds and berries of Capparis spinosa that are pickled to give us capers for our pizza. It’s best grown in a pot across most of the UK, as it will need frost protection overwinter. A tender, slightly sprawling shrub, it can be grown from seed, or bought as a small plant. If you grow from seed, be warned its not keen on having its roots disturbed so start off in modules or pots rather than trays.

Olives

Hardier than the caper, Olive trees, Olea europaea, are happy in the ground in many parts of the UK. However, young plants and plants in colder gardens would be better in pots so you can supply frost protection overwinter.

Most summer you should have fruits, ie olives, forming on your tree. Whether they will ripen is a different question, but you may be lucky. If they do ripen, harvest them in autumn, usually when they turn from green to black on the tree. Bear in mind that they need preparation before eating , ie marinading or pickling, both of which are easy to do at home.

Rocket / Arugula

In case you wondered, yes, this is the same plant! Eruca vesicaria subsp. sativa, has many common names but more importantly is an easy annual to grow and is a delicious addition to a pizza – and our pizza garden.

For our purposes, you will still be able to sow rocket seeds into September. In fact, successional sowing is a good idea as if the leaves are not picked, rocket may flower and seed, so you don’t want a glut of it. Sow 4 – 8 seeds to a module (they’re small so don’t worry too much if more fall in) so you have a clump to plant out, thereby minimising root disturbance.

Rosemary

Salvia Rosmarinus, syn Rosmarinus officinalis, is a good addition to pizzas with strong flavoured toppings such as kale and fatty meats. Rosemary will tolerate an acid soil. However, it will grow bigger than many of our other plants. If you’re growing in a raised bed, perhaps try the prostrate rosemary instead, so it can drape over the edge.

Spinach

Spinach, Spinacia oleracea, is a hardy annual vegetable that grows quickly, so you’ll be able to sow seeds whether or not you can find plants to add now. Keep in the shadiest part of your pizza garden and with a moist soil.

There is also a perennial, or perpetual spinach. This is actually a chard, Beta vulgaris, and member of the beet family. It can be cropped through both the summer and cooler months as a cut and come again leaf.

Sweet Peppers

Capsicum annuum, Bell peppers, need a sunny location if they’re to fruit well outside in the garden. Personally, I always grow a couple inside the greenhouse as well as a couple outside just to ensure I get a crop.

Thyme

Thyme, Thymus vulgaris, is a small upright evergreen herb that likes dry feet in the winter. In rainy Britain, its advisable to add grit to the planting hole. Creeping thymes tend to propagate themselves by rooting where stems touch the earth. You can try this method, called layering, with upright thymes if you have a long side stem.

How to Grow Your Own Pizza Garden

Before we get onto whether you can grow cheese and pizza dough, lets consider where we could grow the main ingredients.

A sheltered sunny spot is best for all of the plants except those we’re growing for their leaves. The planting plans will bear that in mind. Now you may not have a spot in your garden which gets the sun all day and that is actually fine. Light rather than direct sunlight is more crucial, although if you can give these largely Mediterranean plants sun for part of the afternoon they’ll repay you in plenty.

Pizza gardens can vary in size depending on how many of the ingredients you grow and how many of each of the different plants. For example, in small spaces, they’ll work with a group of plants in one container, or with plants in individual pots all grouped together.

Raised beds work well as they offer the free draining nutritious soil needed to get a good harvest. Remember you don’t have to grow the plants in a pizza slice design, you could grow them as you normally would, in rows or square foot gardening style.

And of course growing the pizza garden directly into the ground also works.

Garden Teacher Tip

When you’re planting out your garden, bury reservoirs next to the tomatoes to reduce the watering chore. These can be homemade from plastic bottles or clay plant pots or bought in olla. They’ll water plants up to couple of feet away (depending on size, soil type etc) so have your leafy plants nearby.

Grow Your Own Pizza Garden Design

These are available as freebie downloads, with layout and number of plants needed: see the gardening printables links at the end.

Container gardens

For example, in a smallish container you might grow 1 x bush tomato and surround it with alternating ‘clumps’ of basil, oregano and chives. A large container could have a trellis in the middle with a vining tomato plant

Individual pots grouped together can also work. Aim to have the same material or colour for all the pots so it feels like they’re all part of a whole.

Raised beds

If you have or make a square raised bed you could make a round pizza shape planting plan, by filling in the corners with a creeping thyme.

A rectangular raised bed could have repeats of the pizza shape along its length. This would also allow you to vary the ingredients / plants, perhaps so every member of the family has their own favourite pizza growing in the garden!

In the border or kitchen garden

The classic pizza shaped pizza garden obviously works well laid out on the ground. In a larger garden, distinguish the slices with narrow person-foot wide paths to allow access for weeding, watering and harvesting. You could have a slice per family member, or replicate the plants in each segment. With a smaller pizza shape, pebbles can be used to divide the segments.

Alternatively, plant up each segment with one type of plant. This can be a better idea with larger pizza gardens, as it allows you to site the taller tomatoes where they wont shade the other plants, except for the rocket and spinach which will appreciate it.

Pizza Garden Plus

Do you prefer the easy option or the real challenge? How easy would it be to grow these pizza dough, meat, cheese and cheese alternatives in or near your pizza garden? Is it practical? Personally, I think buying some of these difficult to grow or process ingredients is definitely allowed. I mean, the project to grow your own pizza garden is supposed to be fun not a hard slog!

But if you have the space and want to push a few boundaries, I’m happy to help you. Growing up and in early adulthood I had experience of livestock and a small holding. At the present time, I just help a friend with her hens and enjoy the eggs, although we are planning to get our own when we’ve cleared more space in the garden. And maybe a goat or a jersey cow (this usually when no-one fancies mowing and strimming the meadow that should be mainly lawn).

And now I’ve thought about the whole, plot to plate scenario, I’m of a mind to explore how easy or not it would be growing all, or at least many more, of the ingredients that go into a pizza, then share with you. Watch this space…

And finally

If you’d like more help designing and to grow your own pizza garden, edible ornamental garden, or have queries regarding your existing garden, do get in touch to ask about our design and consultancy services.

For further gardening advice and inspiration, ideas for edible gardens and more, check out Plews Potting Shed blogs, including the selection below and our monthly Tipsheet You could come and find us on Instagram – @plewsgd Pinterest and Facebook too.

And on that note, you can have a peek at my new garden in the (new) Instagram account @spitfiresandslowworms and for those of you who prefer Facebook – Spitfires and Slow Worms

And if you’d like some personal help, we offer a mix of practical sessions and theory in our bespoke Gardening Lessons and Courses. There’s a blog link below plus a pdf download with more info