Here’s how you get there: Go out Penn Avenue all way through Wilkinsburg and Forest Hills. Pass Vincent’s Pizza Park. [Pro tip: keep Vincent’s in mind–time things right and you can stop there for lunch on the way back.] Take the turn onto Electric Avenue to get you down into Turtle Creek. When you’re stopped, staring straight up at the giant old Westinghouse plant, make that left. You’ll slide onto the Tri-Boro Expressway, but you won’t be there long.

As soon as you see a handmade sign reading Greenhouse stuck into the grass, take that left, and then a quick right where the road forks and leads you straight up the hillside. Follow it around until you get to Henkel’s Greenhouse.

Why go all the way out to Turtle Creek when there are so many places that will sell you plantlings between here and there? I’ll tell you why: Henkel’s is the ultimate Pittsburgh greenhouse experience. Thanks to my buddy Bill for the tip on this one, it’s become an annual tradition ever since.

This weekend is a couple of things: today is Mother’s Day. Nothing says “thank you for bringing me into the world” like a drug store greeting card and brunch at King’s, but this blogger really does love his momma, and momma is a terrific gardener. It also happens to be exactly the right time to get your vegetables in the ground, and this turned out to be a perfect sunshiny hot weekend to get on it (but don’t worry if you didn’t, there’s still time).

So we’re going to honor mothers, gardeners, thumbs (green and otherwise), and terrific old-school family businesses with this little Orbit tribute to Henkel’s Greenhouse via three great reasons to get your keister out to Turtle Creek.

Reason #1: Four generations of Henkels growing your plants

I’m not going to pretend that I know the Henkel’s whole family tree and The Orbit isn’t the kind of shady “journalism” that “asks hard questions” and “gets answers.” No, we go with our gut and just hope we’re right. But here’s what our gut has witnessed over the years: a relationship of what appears to be great-grandpa, grandpa, father, and son (yes: all Henkel growers seem to be male), ages roughly eight to eighty, sowin’ and growin’ together. It’s beautiful. (But guys: maybe let the ladies get in the dirt too.)

Reason #2: The trip to the greenhouse

It’s a little bit of an adventure just getting up there.  The signage is minimal, you’re very far off any commercial drag, and the single-lane road that takes you there could well be on a mountain in West Virginia. Home Depot, this ain’t. Once you’re there, Henkel’s occupies the large yard of a humble two-story frame house, built up a steep hillside, cobbled together over likely decades with jerry-rigged kits and recycled shipping pallets.

Reason #3: It’s cheap*

Here’s what twelve bucks buys you at Henkel’s**:

• 9 tomato (3 each: Golden Boy, Potato Leaf, Viva Italia)
• 15 pepper (6 Sweet Banana, 3 Early Sensation, 6 Inferno)
• 4 zucchini
• 3 sweet Italian basil

* Realistically, travel time and expense to Turtle Creek likely erases any monetary savings, but it’s still cheap.

** This blogger is obviously interested in vegetables, but Henkel’s has a full compliment of flowers, shrubs, ground cover, etc.–which we’ve purchased in the past. I just didn’t pick any of those up this year. They also have lots of other vegetables, but I just stuck with the basics this year.