plans for hillside garden stairs?

Question

My house is on a hillside lot and there is a steep slope in our yard, with a flat area at the top where we would like to plant a vegetable garden. The soil is clay and rock and seems pretty stable--the house has been there 80 years with apparently no slides. Any ideas where we can find DIY plans for constructing some type of stairway up the hill using rocks, railroad ties or other materials? Thanks.

Answer 1

here are a few sites:
http://www.americanbaby.com/bhg/story.jh...

http://www.outdoor-garden-plans.com/outd...

good luck

Answer 2

My recomendation... don't use someone elses' plans. If you have a large enough yard, consider terracing it. When my grandparents moved out to the mountains, we made their downward sloping backyard into something similar to a pyramid... I don't know how else to describe it. We used between 3 and 6 railroad ties high per level to make progressive flat areas for them to plant. If you do decide to use railroad ties, be sure to anchor them down about six feet. We didn't and after we filled the first section we had about 2 tons worth of topsoil topple over all the work we had done. Good luck

Answer 3

I would Google "hillside stairway plan" and see what comes up. I would also try Amazon.com and see if they don't have a landscaping book that covers the subject. Check out your home center, they may have a book or pamphlet.

Answer 4

Hi Dottie,
With all due repect you should be able to accomplish this without any real detailed plan.

Without knowing the height of the hill, certainly you could build a stairway by digging into the hill with "steps" at a normal height. You might even dig in and add cut railroad ties, or treated 2x material.

If you don't want to dig in you can craft the entire stair case with treated 2x10's adding each tread at an appropriate step height, after securing two side pieces at the height of the hill, by burying 2 x... or 4 x 4 treated posts, top and bottom, then add the treads with a level, using galvanized screws through the side frame. You might add "cleats" to help support each step. Work your way from bottom to top allowing a place to stand as you move toward the final step.
In essence the staircase will sit against the hill, not into it. With this method you can add a hand rail as well.

Steven Wolf