Yes, Garden Soon offers garden consulting in Carnegie — $85–$130 for the initial consultation, which includes walking the yard together, mapping the light, and producing a plan specific to your conditions. Carnegie sits in the Chartiers Creek valley with hillsides on both sides. We build every garden plan in Carnegie around what we actually find on site, not a generic template.
When we show up for a consultation, the first thing we do is walk the whole yard with you. We're looking at sun — specifically how many hours of direct light each potential garden spot actually gets, because that single factor determines almost everything. Six hours or more is what tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers need to produce well; leafy greens and herbs can manage on four to five. We ask what you want to grow, what your family actually eats, how much time you realistically want to put in, and whether you're thinking in-ground or raised beds. From there we sketch a layout on paper right there on site — bed dimensions, orientation, what goes where, spacing. We put together a plant list that fits both your conditions and your goals. We talk through timing: when to direct-sow, when to transplant, what goes in the ground in March versus what has to wait until after last frost. You walk away from a session with a sketch, a list, and a plan you can actually follow.
For Carnegie specifically: clay loam throughout; Chartiers Creek floodplain adds alluvial soil variation in lower areas. Some older borough sections have fill history from past industrial use. Drainage varies significantly by lot elevation and position.
You keep everything we produce during the session. That means the layout sketch — drawn on site, with bed dimensions and plant placement — the written plant list with varieties and quantities, timing notes for your specific region, and our soil recommendations in writing. This isn't advice that evaporates when we leave. What you walk away with is a physical document you can refer back to all season, bring to a nursery, or hand off to someone helping you build the beds.
Step one is a short call before we ever come out — we want to know roughly what you're hoping to grow, whether you have existing beds or are starting from scratch, and what your site looks like. Step two is the site visit itself, which runs about an hour and a half to two hours. We walk the yard together, map the sun across different spots, look at the soil, assess drainage, talk through layout options. Step three is where it comes together: we sketch a garden plan on paper right there on site, including bed dimensions, paths, and what grows where. We build out a plant list specific to your conditions — varieties that perform in zone 6, quantities that fit your space. We go through timing in detail: what to start in March, what to wait on until after last frost, how to succession plant lettuce so you're not drowning in it one week and out of it the next. Step four is optional: a follow-up visit two to three weeks in, when you have questions that didn't exist until you started digging.
An initial garden consultation — site visit, sun assessment, layout sketch, plant list, and timing guide — runs $85 to $130. If you want a full garden plan with a follow-up visit included, that package is $225 to $375 depending on site complexity and plan scope. Remote consultations by phone or video are available at $50 to $75 per hour.
Yes — Garden Soon provides in-person garden consulting in Carnegie. 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. Carnegie sits in the Chartiers Creek valley with hillsides 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 Carnegie.
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.
An initial consultation — the site visit, sun assessment, layout sketch, plant list, and timing guide — runs $85 to $130. A full garden plan with a follow-up visit is $225 to $375. Stand-alone follow-up visits are $65 to $95 per hour, and remote consultations by phone or video are $50 to $75 per hour. We go over the right option for your situation on the initial call before anything is scheduled.
Customers who do a garden consultation in Carnegie often connect with these other services:
Garden Soon
Licensed & insured in PA · Rated 4.8★ on Google
Providing Vegetable Garden Design in Carnegie, PA and surrounding areas.