Get ready to chow down on a delicious slice of pizza, freshly baked from the oven.

There's only one catch: before you can eat it, the entire oven has to be built from scratch.

The Richmond Fruit Tree Sharing Project is putting on a three-day workshop, from August 13-15, demonstrating environmental-friendly and sustainable building practices.

As part of the hands-on tutorial, a permanent cob oven will be built at the Sharing Farm in Terra Nova Gardens.

"We're thrilled to be building an oven in the farm's healing garden, which will add to the garden's original concept as a gathering place for feasts and potlucks," said Mary Gazetas of the Sharing Farm.

The Sharing Farm's cob stove will be wide enough for two oven pans -- perfect for baking fresh bread and pizza for volunteers and participants of workshops at the farm.

Cob is an ancient building material created by mixing natural materials, like clay, sand and straw.

To build the stove, the Sharing Farm has enlisted help from a "natural building collective" called the Mud Girls, who hail from Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands.

The Mud Girls use entirely natural elements to build houses and stoves, and show others how to do to the same, as part of their sustainable living movement. Their goal is to "inspire people to think about ancient or new and creative ways to change how we live."

"Building a cob oven is definitely a hands-on, participatory event," said Kimi Hendess, who will be overseeing the project. "Cob can be mixed with either hands or feet so participants will certainly get to 'feel' how easy it is to build with cob. Everyone should be ready to get dirty."

The Mud Girls recently completed building an oven for the Earthwise Society in Delta, and Arzeena Hamir, a board member on the Richmond Fruit Tree Project, is excited to bring the all-natural, lo-tech oven to Richmond's charitable farm, accomplishing a unique environmental feat for the community.

"Almost all of the ingredients that we're using to build the oven were found in Richmond. So we have clay that's coming off the farm. We have sand that was dredged from the river, that the City's donating to us.

"Straw came from a local farmer. And then we have a little bit of manure that's going into the mix as well, and that came from Councillor Harold Steves' farm," explained Hamir.

Even the bricks that will be used for the base of the oven were salvaged locally.

"And all of the actual building will done by hand, so it's very much a community-based project. It's definitely built by Richmond, from Richmond," added Hamir.

The workshop begins today (Friday) and is open to everyone in Richmond, 18 and up.

It costs $20 a day or $50 for the whole weekend. Registration is limited to 12 spots.

Free childcare is also available upon request. Interested participants should call 604-727-9728, or e-mail info@richmondfruitree.com.