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I Grew a Pizza Garden Kit and Never Ordered Delivery Again
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items Spending $25 on mediocre delivery pizza three times a week finally broke me — so I planted tomatoes, basil, and peppers in my backyard and started making pies from scratch. If you're tired of sad takeout and want weekend pizza nights that actually ta...
Sections
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Pizza Garden Starter Kits and Seed Sets
Raised Beds and Planters for Small Spaces
Soil and Fertilizer That Actually Grows Flavor
Watering Tools That Saved My Plants From Me
Garden Supports and Cages for Heavy Tomato Plants
Pest Control Without Ruining Your Food
Pizza Garden Starter Kits and Seed Sets
Wandered around for weeks trying to figure out which tomato varieties work for sauce versus which ones just fall apart — these kits took the guesswork out completely.
Grab two of these instead of one — I went through my first basil plant in three weeks because I kept picking leaves for caprese salads before the pizza even happened.
Bonnie Plants Sweet Basil 19.3 oz. 2-Pack
Switch to Romas if you've been trying to make sauce with beefsteaks and wondering why it's watery. Night and day difference, and they produce like crazy by mid-July.
Burpee Roma VF Tomato Vegetable Seed, 1-Pack
Toss a few slices on your pizza before it goes in the oven — my neighbor who claims he hates spicy food ate four slices without complaining, so the heat level is perfect.
"Bonnie Plants 24"" to 48"" Mammoth Jalapeno Pepper
Use this if you're starting seeds indoors in February like I did — every single Roma sprouted within ten days and I felt like a genius for the first time in gardening.
Jiffy, Reusable Seed Starter Kit, 72 Cells with 36mm Peat
Raised Beds and Planters for Small Spaces
My backyard is basically a postage stamp, so finding containers that fit without turning the patio into a jungle was a real puzzle until I landed on these.
Perfect if you rent and can't dig up the yard — I assembled this in twenty minutes with zero tools and grew enough tomatoes for sauce all summer.
Best Choice Products 48x24x30in Raised Garden Bed
Keep this on your apartment balcony for basil and peppers. Went on a four-day trip and came back to plants that looked better than when I left, thanks to the self-watering reservoir.
Bloem, Self-Watering Plastic Planter, 16", Charcoal
Pair two of these side by side if you've got a sunny corner — the cedar smells incredible and it held up through a brutal rainstorm season without warping at all.
Greenes Fence Original Cedar Raised Garden Bed, 4' x 8'
Snag this if you have back problems and bending over traditional beds makes you miserable. Waist-height growing changed everything for my dad, who's 67 and gardens daily now.
Keter Urban Bloomer Resin Raised Garden Bed, Graphite
Soil and Fertilizer That Actually Grows Flavor
First year I used cheap dirt and my tomatoes tasted like crunchy water. Learned the hard way that soil is literally where all the flavor lives.
Ditch whatever bargain bin soil you grabbed last time — my tomatoes went from bland to restaurant-quality the season I switched to this. Not exaggerating even a little.
Customer reviews for Miracle-Gro Performance Organics
Sprinkle this around your plants every two weeks and watch what happens. My Roma plants were producing so many tomatoes by August I was begging neighbors to take some.
Espoma Organic Tomato-Tone Fertilizer
Try this if you're filling raised beds and don't want to buy fifteen bags of soil — one compressed brick expands to fill way more space than you'd expect.
Miracle-Gro Expand 'N Gro Concentrated Planting Mix .67
For anyone who forgets to fertilize (me, every single time) — just shove these spikes in the soil and forget about them. My peppers doubled in size within three weeks.
Jobe's Organics Vegetable & Tomato Fertilizer Spikes
Watering Tools That Saved My Plants From Me
Killed my first basil plant by overwatering it like a helicopter parent. These tools helped me figure out the actual sweet spot.
Use this gentle shower setting instead of blasting your seedlings with a regular hose — I knocked over three baby tomato plants before I learned that lesson.
Dramm 30" One Touch Berry Rain Wand
Grab this before you drown another basil plant. Stick it in the dirt and it tells you exactly when to water. Cost me eight bucks and saved probably fifty dollars in dead plants.
Watering Guide and Table Moisture Meter
Swap out that kinky old hose that sprays water everywhere except where you aim it. This one actually reaches my raised beds without me doing gymnastics across the yard.
Gilmour Flexogen 50ft Heavy Duty Garden Hose
Set this up if you travel at all during summer — went to the beach for a week in July and came home to tomatoes that were actually riper and happier than before I left.
Raindrip R559DP Automatic Drip Watering Kit
Garden Supports and Cages for Heavy Tomato Plants
Nobody warned me that Roma tomato plants get HEAVY when they're loaded with fruit. Lost an entire branch of tomatoes before I wised up and staked everything properly.
Get these before your plants are already flopping over — I waited too long and tried to cage a three-foot plant, which went about as well as you'd imagine.
Gardener's Blue Ribbon TMC60 Ultomato Tomato Fruit
Try these if flimsy wire cages have collapsed on you before. Held up my most ridiculous Roma plant that was basically a tomato tree by September.
3 Pack Square Tomato Cages for Garden
Pair these with some garden twine for your pepper plants — way cheaper than buying individual stakes, and bamboo looks nicer than those ugly green metal ones.
4 ft. Natural Bamboo Garden Stakes
Ditch the twist ties that cut into your stems. These are soft enough to hold branches without strangling them, and you can reuse them next season too.
VELCRO ONE-WRAP Garden Ties, 50 ft x 1/2
Pest Control Without Ruining Your Food
Aphids showed up on my basil like uninvited guests at a party. Spent a whole evening googling organic pest solutions before finding ones that actually work on edible plants.
Spray this on your basil leaves every few days when you spot tiny bugs — cleared my aphid problem in under a week and the basil still tasted perfectly fine on pizza.
Natria, Neem Oil, Ready-to-Use, 24 fl oz, Gardening
Keep this on hand for the moment you see whiteflies on your pepper plants. Caught mine early and one application knocked them out completely.
Safer, OMRI Listed Insect Killing Soap Concentrate, 16 fl oz
For anyone dealing with caterpillars eating holes in their tomato leaves — this organic spray stopped the damage overnight and I didn't feel weird eating the tomatoes afterward.
Captain Jack's 16 oz Deadbug Brew Ready-To-Use Insect
Stick a few of these near your plants and you'll be horrified at how many gnats were hanging around. Caught dozens in the first day, which was disgusting but satisfying.
Yellow Sticky Trap
Harvesting and Preserving Your Pizza Ingredients
August hit and suddenly I had more tomatoes than I knew what to do with. Figuring out how to store everything without waste took some trial and error.
Stock up on these before peak harvest — I ran out mid-August and had tomatoes sitting on my counter going soft while I scrambled to find more jars at the store.
Ball, Glass Mason Jar, 32 Oz. Quart, Regular Mouth 12-Count
Use these to cut basil and peppers cleanly instead of ripping them off the plant like a caveman. Clean cuts mean the plant heals faster and keeps producing longer.
How to Clean and Care for Your Fiskars Garden Tools
Grab this if you want homemade pizza sauce in January from tomatoes you grew in July. Canned eighteen jars my first year and felt unreasonably proud about it.
Presto 23 Quart Aluminum Pressure Canner and Cooker
Freeze your extra roasted peppers and basil in these sealed bags — pulled some out in December for pizza and they tasted almost as good as fresh off the plant.
FoodSaver Handheld+ 2-in-1 Vacuum Sealing System
Pizza Making Tools for the Actual Fun Part
Growing the ingredients is great and all, but the first pizza I made on a regular baking sheet was embarrassing. These turned my kitchen into a real pizza operation.
Try baking your pizza on this instead of a sheet pan and tell me the crust doesn't taste completely different. Crispy bottom, soft middle — took me from amateur to legit.
Chef Pomodoro Baking Steel Pizza Stone for Grill
Dust this with cornmeal before sliding your pizza onto the stone — no more burning your forearms reaching into a 500-degree oven with oven mitts like I used to.
New Star Foodservice 50363 Wooden Pizza Peel, 18 x 19
Ditch that wobbly dollar store pizza cutter. This one rolls through homemade crust and toppings in one smooth pass without dragging all the cheese with it.
Cuisinart Pizza Cutter | CTG-02-PCC
Use the dough hook attachment and let it knead for eight minutes while you prep toppings. Went from sore arms and lumpy dough to perfect stretchy pizza crust every Friday night.
Classic™ Series 4.5 Quart Tilt-Head Stand Mixer - White
Sauces and Seasonings to Finish Everything Off
Realized pretty quickly that fresh tomatoes alone don't make great sauce — you need a few pantry staples to pull the whole flavor together.
Toss a tablespoon of this into your fresh tomato sauce while it simmers and suddenly it tastes like the pizza place down the street that charges nineteen dollars a pie.
McCormick® Signature Seasoning Italian Seasoning, 1.31 oz
Drizzle this on your pizza right after it comes out of the oven — sounds simple but it adds that rich, peppery finish that makes people ask what your secret ingredient is.
Pompeian Robust Extra Virgin Olive Oil - 68 fl oz
Sprinkle this on fresh tomato slices before they go on the pizza. The crunch and burst of salt against sweet garden tomatoes is honestly the reason I grew them in the first place.
Morton All-Natural Coarse Sea Salt, Finishing Salt 17.6 Oz
Keep a few cans in the pantry for when your garden can't keep up with your pizza habit — blend these with your fresh basil and roasted peppers and nobody will know the difference.
Red Gold Diced Tomatoes, 28 oz Can