I'm breathing a sigh of satisfaction and relief today on finishing a garden project. Originally, we had several issues we wanted to deal with. First, we had a sloping bed of shrubs behind the house that felt like wasted space. The only way out to the back yard was a sloping path of loose gravel and sharp seashells off the side of the bed that was inconvenient in comfort and circuitous route. We wanted more solid steps there, as well as another set of more direct steps through the bed to the back yard. We also had a dirt area between our back sidewalk and the house. Last year it was our garden, but it was too small. In the winter, it was too messy when we stored firewood there. So we wanted that stabilized, but also wanted more garden space. Finally, my wife's been wanting raised beds for years. After a bunch of sketches, I got to work. That was exactly 8 weeks ago. I've spent virtually every daylight hour that I'm not "at work" working on it.
I decided on using concrete pavers for making the dirt area into a patio and for the two sets of stairs, and using pressure treated lumber for the raised beds. I started with the patio first, since that seemed to be the most straight forward part of the project. Then I moved on to the main set of stairs.
Here's a shot of the mayhem. I found out quickly that just getting materials takes a huge amount of time. No less than 25 separate trips for crushed stone, pavers, and lumber.
A closeup of stair construction. I couldn't believe how much dirt I had to remove to build stairs. But figure 4-6" crushed stone, 2" stone dust, 8" blocks (risers) and 2.75" pavers, and going down 17" or so actually makes sense. Digging out rocky, clayey soil is a slow go when your earthmoving equipment consists of a shovel and buckets. (And yes, that is a atl-atl dart holding my plumb line.)
