Share it! Science : Grow a Taco or Pizza Garden with Kids

Monday, April 4, 2016

Grow a Taco or Pizza Garden with Kids

Grow a Taco or Pizza Kid's Garden and seed giveaway
Growing plants with children has so many benefits- learning plant life cycles, learning where food comes from, and of course learning some responsibility along the way! Growing a kid's theme garden can really connect children with their garden patch. 

Last year, we explored growing Rainbow and Pollinator gardens
Grow a Rainbow or Butterfly Children's Garden DIY

This year we will investigate themed vegetable gardens: a Taco garden and a Pizza garden!

This post contains affiliate links, please see disclosures for more information.

We're also teaming up with Renee's Garden Seeds once again this year for a seed giveaway. At the end of this post, enter to win 4 packages of seeds including tomatoes, peppers and herbs. Giveaway runs from April 5th, 2016 to April 11th, 2016. Note: Renee's Garden Seeds provided the prizes for this giveaway, however, I was not compensated in any other way for this post, the ideas and opinions here are my own.

Growing a Taco Garden

Green and sweet peppers from the garden grow with kids
Garden Peppers! ©SBF 2015
You can get started growing a taco garden in pots, a small garden bed or in a portion of a larger garden. What can you grow in a taco garden? There are a wide variety of tomatoes and peppers to start. You might also want to try herbs like cilantro, or grow some scallions or onions. Lettuce is easy to direct sow into the garden and it isn't too difficult to keep your crop growing throughout the summer. What other vegetables can you put on a taco? Get creative!

You can make some salsa right out of your garden with this kid's salsa recipe from Weelicious. Although growing corn and grinding it for your own tortillas might seem a little ambitious, this can definitely lead to an interesting discussion about where the other ingredients for a taco come from! You might also want to check out the new picture book, So You Want to Grow a Taco? by Bridget Heos to explore the idea further.


If you are interested in growing your taco garden in pots, you might try some of the container varieties from Renee's Garden such as: Heirloom Stupice or Super Bush.

 

Herbs are easy to grow on a patio or even indoors. For a taco garden you might try some cilantro, like this heirloom variety.

 

There are also many nice varieties of lettuce that can be grown directly in the garden, or in a container. I really like Sweetie Baby Romaine and Renee's Baby Leaf Blend.



For more varieties of Renee's Garden seeds that can be grown in pots, check out this listing.
Mixed lettuce container garden grow with kids
Lettuce mix growing in a container. ©SBF 2015

Growing a Pizza Garden
pizza garden for kids
Dutch oven pizza! ©SBF 2015
What is a pizza made of? What can you grow in your pizza garden? Tomatoes and oregano for sauce, basil, peppers and onions for toppings. If you have a large garden you probably have other items that would taste yummy on there, like eggplant, or even some fried zucchini!

Basil for a pizza garden gardening with kids
Basil growing at the base of tomato plants. ©SBF 2015
Just as you can grow many of your "taco plants" in the garden, or in pots, the same goes for your pizza toppings. Basil and oregano grow wonderfully in pots or out under and among the tomatoes in the garden. These herbs have the added benefit of keeping some tomato pests away!



Roma tomatoes (top) and gold nuggets (bottom) ©SBF 2015
Roma tomatoes are great for making tomato sauce. Try this pizza sauce recipe with the kids. You might try planting this Roma Sauce Tomato variety to make some yummy pizza sauce.


For further learning and discussion about growing pizza ingredients, investigate So You Want to Grow a Pizza? by Bridget Heos.



To get you started with your taco or pizza garden, we're giving away 4 sets of 4 packages of Renee's Garden Seeds. Using the Rafflecopter box below you can enter to win some tomato, pepper and herb seeds for your garden. Later this summer, the winners will be asked to share how their gardens fared this year! The giveaway runs from April 5th, 2016- April 11th, 2016. Winners will be notified via e-mail and announced on the blog. Good luck and have fun gardening!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

http://deceptivelyeducational.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/after-school-linky-4-11.html
 

Grow and Make

7 comments:

  1. We have done the rainbow garden, and will be back by popular demand. We planted some pollinator plants last fall and are anxiously waiting to see action there this spring. I think this summer's project will be the taco garden. We have already begun some herbs and spices indoors in our play kitchen.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That is great Deborah! I love to hear about all the awesome hands-on gardening and other exploration you do with your kiddos. Can't wait to see your pollinator garden!

      Delete
  2. This looks like a good way to get kids more into gardening and seeing how food can be grown! And a great way to get them involved too. :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Kids love watching things grow, and I've found they are more apt to try a veggie when they have some ownership over it's growth. Thanks for stopping by!

      Delete
  3. I have never grown a garden before but I decided to step out of my comfort zone and started a small vegtable garden with my 5yr old son. He is my inspiration. We have not yielded any veggies yet. This article is perfect as it aligns vegtables with pizza, his favorite food.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tina I'm so excited that you are growing some veggies with your son. Gardening with kids has a lot of merit, even if it does not yield a lot of vegetables. I wish you all the best with it!

      Delete
  4. I have never grown a garden before but I decided to step out of my comfort zone and started a small vegtable garden with my 5yr old son. He is my inspiration. We have not yielded any veggies yet. This article is perfect as it aligns vegtables with pizza, his favorite food.

    ReplyDelete