Gardening a Pizza
June 2, 2024
You may not be able to grow a pizza from the ground in one go, but you sure can garden the ingredients! Eighteen Girl Scouts from Troop 1312 put a culinary twist on their Take Action project this June by creating their very own pizza garden.
“A pizza garden is a vegetable garden where you grow ingredients for a pizza. Ours has tomatoes, basil, onions, peppers, and eggplant,” says Troop 1312 Leader Stefanie Freeman.
The idea came to fruition after coordinating with the Bridgton Community Center. Originally, the troop had plans to create a kindness rocks garden—which they still plan to do—but since the gardeners wanted to hold off until the fall, the pizza garden came to life in the meantime! Plus, all vegetables grown will be given away to assist with local food insecurity.
“Anything harvested will be donated to the Bridgton Food Pantry and/or the Senior Lunch Program at the community center,” says Stefanie.
With so many hands on-deck, the garden came together no time, allowing the troop some extra flexibility to make signs and decorations so everyone will know which plants are which. Thanks to some vetted gardeners at the community center, the girls picked up some awesome new planting skills too!
“The master gardeners were amazing with the girls and very excited to partner with us,” says Stefanie.
The garden will continue to be maintained by Troop 1312, with plans to take weekly turns throughout the summer. For any weeks that the girls can’t make it out, the community center has offered to fill in.
“I really enjoyed having help from community members on this. My goal is to get these girls out in their community to become aware of how they can help even in small ways,” says Stefanie.
