One of the biggest factors for our “carbon footprint” is the food that we eat. When just shopping for some food, meat has often traveled a long distance to get to the store shelves. It’s almost impossible to know how far it has actually gone (given the way they mix meat, specifically ground beef), but I’ve heard that it can average up to 1,500 miles! That’s quite a long way to travel, just to get it on your plate. One of the easiest ways to lower your carbon footprint is to produce some of your own food, but to do that on a scale big enough to feed yourself (and your family), you’d need some land, and it’d have to be pretty fertile to produce as much variance as you’re used to seeing in the store. Obviously, not everyone can just go around and plunk down a nice chunk of change for a large amount of land, so if you’re interested in local food, what can you do? (as an aside, watch this local food clip from the show Portlandia).
Knowing that you’ve got no garden, and little time what can you do to start growing some of your own food? If you want to get started now, you can. Just grow a Pizza Pot! For those unfamiliar with a Pizza Pot, it’s exactly what it sounds like: a pot of vegetables/herbs that you can put on a pizza! As you’re surely aware, you can’t grow everything on a pizza in a pot, but you can try. Here’s what you’ll need:
- A large pot to grow your pizza ingredients in
- Soil (or, you can use your home-made compost!)
- Plant food
- Your Favorite Pizza Toppings! (Make sure they can grow in your area
So, once you’ve got everything, here’s what you need to do. Put your soil in the pot, and leave about 1-1.5 inches at the top. Now, you’re ready to plant your favorite pizza toppings. Here are some ideas:
- Tomatoes (I like Roma), but you can use any type
- Basil
- Oregano
- Curly Parsley (I don’t use this, but you can)
- Garlic Chives (I don’t use this either)
- or anything else you want!
Now, there is a certain order to this, so that everything will grow to its fullest potential. You need to plant the tomato first, and it needs to go in the center of the pot. Once that’s done, you can plant everything else that you want in your pot around it. Once everything is in, put it in an area that will get a lot of sun.
You can also put a stake in the pot for the tomato, but it’s not necessary right away – however it will still need to be done. Now, the fun starts – You can watch your plants grow, then enjoy some pizza in the fall! You’ll have fresh ingredients to put on your pizza (I’ve found that this really lends itself to the construction of a margherita pizza that could rule the world). So, enjoy your pizza, and enjoy the fact that you’re doing the environment (and even your pocketbook) a favor. Then you can start plotting your next pizza pot, or if you’re feeling extra crazy, you can move on to a small garden.