Yes, Garden Soon offers garden consulting in Robinson Township — $85–$130 for the initial consultation, which includes walking the yard together, mapping the light, and producing a plan specific to your conditions. Rolling terrain west of Pittsburgh toward the airport. We build every garden plan in Robinson Township 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 Robinson Township specifically: varied across the large township. Agricultural land conversions have some areas with good underlying soil structure; massive commercial development has significantly disturbed natural soils in other areas. Residential subdivisions often have thin topsoil over disturbed clay subsoil.
After the initial consultation, a follow-up visit is available — typically scheduled two to three weeks into the season, when the real questions start showing up. We also stay available for shorter questions through the growing season. For customers who want ongoing support, the full garden plan package includes a revisit built in. Our community plant pickup program is another touchpoint: many consulting customers source their transplants through us, which means we can make sure the plant list we built together is exactly what shows up ready to go in the ground.
When we walk onto a new site, we're reading a lot at once. Where is the sun coming from and what's blocking it — a fence, a roofline, a tree on the neighbor's property that didn't leaf out yet when you checked in April? We look at the ground: does it drain or does it pool after rain? Is the soil clay-heavy, sandy, or somewhere in between? We're also asking a lot of questions, because the physical conditions only tell half the story. We want to know what you actually cook, whether you have deer pressure in the neighborhood, how much time per week you can realistically put into this. Those answers change the plant list and the layout. We've seen too many first gardens fail not because of bad soil or bad luck but because someone planted twelve zucchini plants for two people, or put tomatoes in a spot that looks sunny in the morning but gets shade by noon. The sketch we put together on-site reflects everything we find — not a template, but a plan drawn around what's actually there.
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 Robinson Township. 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. Rolling terrain west of Pittsburgh toward the airport. 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 Robinson Township.
Yes — stand-alone follow-up visits are available at $65 to $95 for an hour on site, and we schedule them when something specific comes up rather than on a fixed calendar. If you're seeing blossom end rot on your tomatoes, something is eating your plants, or you're trying to figure out what to do with beds once your spring crops finish, those are exactly the situations a mid-season visit is useful for. The full garden plan package also includes a follow-up visit built in.
The most common causes in this region are not enough sun, planting warm-season crops before the last frost date, and inconsistent watering — each of those will tank a garden on its own, and they often show up together. In western Pennsylvania, one late frost after tomatoes go in the ground can wipe the whole planting. Walking the site with us lets us identify which of those factors applied to your specific situation and build a plan around avoiding them this time.
The consulting itself is advice and planning — we don't sell seeds, but we do connect customers with our community plant pickup program, which offers vegetable transplants ready to go in the ground at the right time for this region. If you're getting a consultation in late winter or early spring, we'll often talk through what plant starts make sense for your plan and whether the pickup is a good fit for getting those plants.
Customers who do a garden consultation in Robinson Township often connect with these other services:
Garden Soon
Licensed & insured in PA · Rated 4.8★ on Google
Providing Vegetable Garden Design in Robinson Township, PA and surrounding areas.