Building the Stairway to Heaven

Stairway to Heaven, partially completed

It is not for nothing that Steepmeadow is named "Steepmeadow." The thing about the back yard here is that it is, in fact, on a steep slope. Even when you are training for a marathon, you can get winded going up and down.

For some time now, I've been scouring examples of stairs and gardens built into hillsides on Pinterest. 

At last, I found the solution: stair stringers that come pre-cut, available at big-box hardware stores, with matching 48" stair pieces with no-slip cuts. Some leveling required. Combine this with a fair amount of quality time spent with a shovel and some weed-blocking fabric and pebbles, and behold, the Stairway to Heaven.

Looking down on the Stairway to Heaven

Before the Stairway to Heaven

The Steepmeadow Hillside, photo taken from the shed, pre-Stairway

One of the lessons learned in this exercise is that we would very much like to meet that lady who is sure all that glitters is gold so that she could pay for the Stairway to Heaven. Materials are not cheap. Over $300 to get 3 steps and a couple of pea-gravel pads. There's a long way to go, and presumably a commensurate investment in treasure. 

Another lesson is that it is not, in fact, necessary to dig out the entire area that will be beneath the stairs. You just have to dig out cuts for the rails. Please do not ask how this particular lesson was learned, or inquire about the weight of the heavy clay soil that makes up the Steepmeadow hillside.

We have had a few days of abysmal, freezing cold and clouds. Not bad for digging large holes in the yard, but not great for morale in August, when summer begins to wane.

We are getting LOTS of mild chili peppers and tomatoes. The "Delicious" variety have started to produce. They are large and flavorful, but they are woody inside, and we probably won't grow them again.

Today's harvest

It's been a tough year. Late spring. Draught. Now cold. Next year, we've decided that we need to amend the soil somewhat aggressively. Our neighbors used manure (we could smell it for a couple of days), and their garden is producing better than ours. Consequently, I've been purchasing sacks of manure (a less than satisfying investment) each time I visit the big-box hardware store. One sack for every raised bed this fall!

Another spring investment will be a pollinator garden Prairie Moon Nurseries has a lovely selection of perennials that they pick out and deliver with a plan for how to plant them. You can get it in the fall (where we spent all of our money on building part of a stairway), or the spring. We'll buy it in the spring. But we CAN prepare the surface this fall, so that all we have to do is drop the plants in.

So much to do, the summer so short.