Grow Your Own Pizza! (Ingredients, that is)
Pizzas come in all shapes, colors, flavors, you name it! But the basics are usually the same: Crust, sauce, toppings and cheese. As a gardener, you can grow many of the ingredients for your sauce and toppings right outside your back (or front) door.
Sauce Ingredients:
1. Tomato
Great Pizza Sauce starts with delicious Roma tomatoes like Early Resilience.
Early Resilience is a rounded Roma with a deep red interior color, uniform maturity, and good quality flesh for cooking such as for a pizza sauce. Determinate, bushy plants, the AAS Judges noted that this variety was very resistant to Blossom End Rot, resulting in a high yield and less fruit loss.
2. Oregano
For those who believe pizza isn’t pizza without oregano, you’ll want to grow Cleopatra.
Cleopatra’s pretty silver-gray foliage makes this herb one that will be appreciated for its ornamental value as well as its flavor. Unique from most Greek and Italian oreganos, Cleopatra has a mildly spicy, pepperminty flavor perfect in Mediterranean dishes, soups, and sauces. This compact, trailing plant produces a high yield of leaves that are wonderful as a dried spice when fresh isn’t an option.
3. Onion
Thought onions were too hard to grow yourself? Not with Super Star F1
Super Star is an improved white sweet onion recommended for all spring gardens in North America because it is day-length neutral. Most onions require long days – (over 12 hours of sunlight) or short days to bulb. Super Star does not have this requirement so it is widely adaptable. Resistant to pink root, Super Star onions are exceptional when eaten raw, in salads, or cooked in sauces.
Pizza Toppings:
1. Sweet Pepper
Dragonfly F1
Dragonfly pepper plants produce beautiful purple peppers that will add color and taste to your pizza! This pepper transforms itself from a green pepper into a purple fruit that is delicious at any stage of maturity. With the above-average, robust pepper flavor, these fruits are a great addition to your pizza!
Just Sweet F1
A unique snacking pepper with four lobes like a larger bell pepper, only smaller…perfect for smaller pizzas! Not only are the 3-inch fruits deliciously sweet with nice thick walls, but also the plants have been bred to have a strong bushy habit. These peppers have a vivid yellow color with a flavor described as sweet with aromatic accents.
Sweetie Pie F1
A miniature bell pepper that is easy to grow with an excellent fruit set even under hot and humid conditions. An attractive plant that is well-adapted to a container and small garden. Fruits can be harvested either when green or red and are thick-walled, sweet, and flavorful. These peppers can be eaten fresh, grilled, stir-fried, or baked on a pizza.
2. Hot Pepper
Wildcat F1
Wildcat is a cayenne pepper with extra-large, 2-3 ounce fruits. The 8” fruits have a great smoky flavor and peppery sweetness and a mild pungency of 500-1500 Scoville units.
Quickfire F1
Mighty, strong, hot, and quick! Quickfire peppers produce plenty of hot Thai-type delicious fruits of 40,000 Scoville on a compact, sturdy plant that is perfect for container gardening.
Buffy F1
“I dig this fiery little pepper!” says one AAS judge. Buffy produces a good yield of juicy, thick-walled green to red fruits on strong, healthy upright plants with a high pungency at 500,000 Scoville units.
3. Colorful Tomato
Chef’s Choice Orange F1
Now you can experience the wonderful flavor of an orange heirloom tomato in only 75 days from transplant with this hybrid Chef’s Choice Orange. Its disease resistance is an added bonus. Chef’s Choice Orange has a wonderfully bright, almost neon, internal color, and superior flesh taste and texture.
Pink Delicious
With “Delicious” in its name, it has to be good! This early maturing tomato supports the trend of having an heirloom look, flavor, and texture with hybrid disease resistance and improved germination meaning it is much easier to grow. Excellent flavor and a high Brix for a sweeter-than-normal pink tomato.
Chef’s Choice Green F1
Looking for a uniquely colored yet delicious tomato to top your pizza with? Then look no further than, Tomato Chef’s Choice Green F1. The tomato produces beautiful green-colored fruits with subtle yellow stripes and a wonderful citrus-like flavor and a perfect tomato texture.
3. “Must Have” Basil
Basil Dolce Fresca
Dolce Fresca produces sweet tender leaves that maintain an attractive, compact shape that’s both versatile and beautiful. The plant is perfect in containers, borders, or as a focal point. Great for gardeners looking for drought-tolerant, hearty plants, foodies interested in new and better basil, and anyone who wants that great Mediterranean taste added to their pizza.
AAS Winners
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