We offer garden consulting in New Brighton, Beaver County — $85–$130 for an in-person visit that produces a hand-drawn layout, written plant list, and regional timing guide for your last frost zone. The borough spans from Beaver River terrace to hillside residential neighborhoods with significant elevation change. Every New Brighton property has its own set of constraints, and the plan we put together reflects them.
A lot of vegetable gardening content is written for climates that are nothing like ours. Here in western Pennsylvania, our last frost date is typically May 1 to 10 around Pittsburgh — that's later than most of the country, and it compresses the warm-season growing window considerably. Tomatoes and peppers go in after that date. Raised beds help because they warm up two to three weeks faster than in-ground soil in spring, which can genuinely extend your season at this latitude. Across the service territory, conditions vary meaningfully: the WV panhandle runs similar to Pittsburgh — zone 6a to 6b — while central Ohio typically sees its last frost around April 25 to May 5. Move into central Indiana and you're looking at April 15 to 25; southern Indiana can be as early as April 5 to 15, which opens the door to warmer-season crops with a longer run. What thrives in zone 6 with minimal struggle: tomatoes (with the right variety timing), winter squash, beans, kale, garlic. What you'll fight every year: melons unless conditions cooperate. We also connect customers who want to grow their own food with our community plant pickup program, where you can source transplants ready to go in the ground at exactly the right time for this region.
For New Brighton specifically: clay loam on the Beaver River terrace, transitioning to heavier clay and some shale influence on the elevated hillside sections. The older residential areas have had minimal formal soil amendment and compaction relief — core aeration delivers noticeable results quickly on these properties.
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.
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 New Brighton. 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. The borough spans from Beaver River terrace to hillside residential neighborhoods with significant elevation change. 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 New Brighton.
Our consulting focus is vegetable and food gardens, which is where our depth is — soil prep, crop timing, layout for production, season extension. That said, companion planting questions come up regularly, and we're happy to talk through integrating flowers like nasturtiums near squash or marigolds around the border. If your primary goal is a purely ornamental garden, that's a better fit for a landscape designer.
Late winter and early spring — January through March — is the best window, because that timing lets us build your plan before the season starts rather than catching up to it. In western Pennsylvania, cool-season crops like lettuce, spinach, and peas can go in the ground in March, so planning in February gives you time to act on what we put together. We also do consultations in fall for customers who want to plan ahead and get beds prepped before winter.
We can, and a site assessment is especially useful in shady yards because 'shady' covers a lot of ground — there's a real difference between four hours of morning sun and four hours of afternoon sun, and between consistent shade and dappled light. Leafy greens, herbs like parsley and cilantro, and crops like kale and chard can manage on four to five hours. Tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers need six or more and won't perform well in true shade, and we'll tell you that honestly rather than set you up for disappointment.
Customers who invest in getting their garden right tend to look up at some point and notice the lawn around it. It's a natural progression — once you've thought carefully about soil health, sun exposure, and what's actually growing versus what should be, the surrounding turf starts to look like the same conversation. Weed pressure from the lawn migrates into beds. Compacted soil in the yard affects drainage near the garden. The same attention to soil pH and fertility that helps a vegetable garden also applies to the twenty feet of grass around it.
Customers who do a garden consultation in New Brighton often connect with these other services:
Year-round turf health — fertilization, weed control, grub prevention, and winterizer timed to the growing season.
Weekly or biweekly mowing with edge trimming and blowdown. We cut at the right height for cool-season turf and adjust for growth rate.
One-time reclamation for neglected or jungle properties. We bring equipment rated for heavy material and haul everything out.
Spring and fall cleanup — leaf removal, debris, bed edging, ornamental cutbacks, and disposal.
Family- and pet-safe perimeter spray applied around the home exterior — foundation band, entry points, and window frames.
Garden Soon
Licensed & insured in PA · Rated 4.8★ on Google
Providing Vegetable Garden Design in New Brighton, PA and surrounding areas.