When the screen room came down, the scarred footprint was a nasty mix of litter, construction debris, and sand. First I cleaned the garbage and dug out the top foot of dead soil to roughly outline the steps.
Next I used local rocks (boulders, technically) to build steps. This is the granite state, after all... and I had lots of neighbors willing to contribute their rock piles. I experimented with shapes... fitting rocks together and carving into the slope. I didn't want a symmetrical staircase... I wanted something a little more natural feeling.
The sand is so loose that I used plywood pieces to hold back the steps... I'll need to find a more permanent solution, but this works for now. I also learned in the first heavy rain that the sand easily poured through the gaps between the rocks, leaving little deltas on the next level down. Learning from my neighbor Michele's garden success, I tore apart what I had already built, dug a ditch behind each rock wall and sunk a double layer of heavy plastic sheeting to keep the soil where I wanted it.
That's as far as I got in the summer of 2016, which is just as well, since I wasn't about to plant new vegetables in August. My boulder-hoisting continued in spring 2017:
Once I got the step the way I wanted it, I filled each bed with manure-rich organic garden soil and started planting. Happy garden!
