Madison Scout Plants 'Pizza Garden,' Will Donate Produce

A Madison seventh-grader is growing pizza ingredients that she plans to donate to a local soup kitchen and food pantry as part of her Girl Scout Silver Award project.

Jane Hiscano of Troop 1693 planted tomatoes, parsley, oregano, rosemary, basil, onions and bell peppers at the Urban Farm at Lafayette in Morristown last week.

“We bought the seedlings at a local plant sale,” Hiscano said. “It was going to be either a pizza garden or a salsa garden. With salsa, we would only have a few ingredients to grow. With a pizza, you have a lot more options (and toppings).”

Hiscano's father has two gardens of his own at home and has passed his green thumb on to his daughter. Her mother is involved with Grow it Green Morristown, which is how she got to know about Urban Farm.

“I like to garden. That’s where I got the idea,” Hiscano said. “I’m going to donate the (produce) to the Interfaith Food Pantry or the Community Soup Kitchen.”

Grow it Green Morristown created the Urban Farm as an agricultural teaching garden for the Morris School District students and the produce from the garden will be donated to the District and to area food banks.

Hiscano added that some of the other girls in her troop are going to plant flowers around the farm. 

The Urban Farm at Lafayette is a popular place for Scout projects. Recently, Morristown Girl Scouts spent some time at the farm painting and decorating a chicken coop they donated with profits from their cookie sales.