Garden Soon provides garden consulting in Bridgeville, Allegheny County — $85–$130 for an initial site visit that includes sun assessment, a layout sketch, a plant list, and timing guidance for your growing zone. Sits in the Chartiers Creek valley with hillsides rising on both sides. Those site conditions are what we assess first when planning any garden in Bridgeville.
Most people who call us for garden consulting fall into one of three groups. The first tried a raised bed last year — bought the soil, built the box, planted six tomato plants — and ended up with leggy, yellowed plants that gave them maybe a dozen tomatoes by October. The second is a new homeowner who finally has a yard and wants to grow food but genuinely doesn't know where to start: which direction does the sun move, where should the beds go, what can actually grow here? The third grew up with a huge family garden, helped pick tomatoes every summer as a kid, and now wants to start their own but realizes they were never the one making the decisions. All three situations share the same core problem: a lot of enthusiasm and a real gap in the site-specific, practical knowledge that turns a patch of dirt into something productive. That gap is exactly what we help close — without making anyone feel like they should have already known this.
For Bridgeville specifically: clay loam throughout; older properties in the borough core have better organic matter. Hillside lots near Chartiers Creek corridor can have erosion issues. Some low areas near the creek have heavier soils prone to ponding.
A standard consultation includes the full site visit — sun assessment, drainage review, soil evaluation — plus a hand-drawn layout sketch, a plant list matched to your specific conditions and goals, a timing guide for your last frost zone, and soil amendment recommendations. If you're building raised beds, we walk through what to fill them with. The session runs about an hour and a half to two hours on site, and we cover everything you need to actually put a garden in the ground with confidence.
Before: you want to grow your own food. Maybe you've thought about it for years, or tried it once and it didn't go well. You have a yard, some ambition, and a lot of unanswered questions — where exactly to put beds, what soil to use, what will realistically grow in your conditions, and when to plant what. During: we come out, walk the site with you, map the sun, talk through what you want to grow and what your yard can support. We sketch a layout on paper, put together a plant list with varieties suited to this region, and work through the timing so you know what to start in late winter, what goes in the ground in early spring, and what has to wait until after last frost. We talk soil mix if you're doing raised beds — roughly equal parts compost, topsoil, and perlite or vermiculite for drainage and air. After: you have a paper sketch of your garden, a written plant list, timing notes, and soil recommendations. You have a plan you can hand to someone at the garden center and actually execute. And if questions come up six weeks in, a follow-up visit is available.
The initial consultation ($85–$130) covers a full site visit of one and a half to two hours, sun and drainage assessment, a hand-drawn layout sketch, a written plant list with region-appropriate varieties, timing guidance for your last frost zone, and soil amendment recommendations. You walk away with documents in hand. The full garden plan with follow-up ($225–$375) includes everything in the initial consultation plus a more detailed written design plan and a second site visit two to three weeks later, when questions have had time to develop. If you've already had a consultation and just need us back for a specific issue or a season check-in, a standalone follow-up visit is $65 to $95 for an hour on site. Remote consultations — phone or video, useful for off-season planning or customers outside our regular service area — are $50 to $75 per hour. All pricing is honest and upfront; we discuss scope on the initial call before anything is scheduled.
Yes — Garden Soon provides in-person garden consulting in Bridgeville. We come to your property, walk the site together, and produce a plan specific to your conditions. Call (724) 201-9484 or use the contact form to schedule.
We start by walking the yard together and mapping where direct sun actually falls through the day — that determines where beds can go and what will produce well. Sits in the Chartiers Creek valley with hillsides rising on both sides. From there we sketch a layout on paper during the visit and put together a written plant list matched to your conditions and what you want to grow in Bridgeville.
Yes — and in zone 6, there's more season to work with than most people assume. Cool-season crops like lettuce, spinach, kale, peas, and radishes can go in the ground four to six weeks before last frost, which in western Pennsylvania means starting in March. With succession planting — putting in a short row of lettuce every two weeks rather than all at once — you can have continuous harvests rather than a single glut. In fall, many of those same crops can go back in after summer heat breaks, and cold frames or row cover can push the harvest window into November and beyond.
Yes, and a site visit is especially useful in a heavily shaded yard because the actual usable light is almost always different from what it looks like to the eye. We map sun through the day across different spots in the yard — sometimes there's a window of direct light that opens up the possibility of a small productive bed that isn't obvious at first. Where true deep shade exists, we're honest about what it can and can't support, and we can talk through alternatives like containers moved to a brighter location or crops that genuinely perform on four hours of light.
Yes — hillside gardens are common in Pittsburgh and they're very solvable with the right approach. Terraced raised beds built into a slope can turn a site that seems impossible into productive growing space, and the elevated construction often means excellent drainage and sun exposure. We'd look at the grade, the sun angle, how water moves across the slope, and what structural approach makes sense — whether that's stacked stone, timber framing, or another method — and build a layout around what will actually work on that specific hillside.
Customers who do a garden consultation in Bridgeville often connect with these other services:
Garden Soon
Licensed & insured in PA · Rated 4.8★ on Google
Providing Vegetable Garden Design in Bridgeville, PA and surrounding areas.