I’m Luke, and I’ve been getting my hands dirty in Pennsylvania soil for as long as I can remember.
It started with a house my grandfather built in the 1950s. When I took on the project of restoring it, what began as property work quickly turned into a full-blown passion for the outdoors. I taught myself landscaping, then turned it into a business—spending years transforming backyards, installing gardens, and learning what actually thrives in Pennsylvania’s unpredictable climate.
Somewhere along the way, growing food became the thing I cared about most. There’s something different about watching a tomato plant you started from seed produce its first fruit, or pulling garlic out of the ground that you planted the previous fall. I went deep—raised beds, in-ground plots, containers, fruit bushes—and I kept coming back to the same question: what works best specifically here in PA?
That question is what GetHandyOutdoors is built around. Pennsylvania gardeners deal with a unique set of challenges—USDA zones 5a through 7a, late spring frosts that can stretch into May, humid summers, and clay-heavy soil in a lot of the state. Most gardening advice online is written for “somewhere.” This site is written for here.
Every guide on GetHandyOutdoors comes from real experience growing in Pennsylvania conditions. You’ll find detailed, crop-specific advice—when to plant, what varieties perform best, how to handle the pests and problems that actually show up in our region. I write the guides I wished I had when I was starting out—what to plant, when to plant it, and what to watch out for along the way.
Thanks for being here. If you have questions or just want to say hello, you can reach me at [email protected].
