Northeast Gardening: Toughest challenge for gardeners in the NE?, 1 by rcn48

rcn48 wrote:
Meg, when I made my rock walls - I kept building from three different piles of rocks. Obviously the larger rocks would lay the framework on the edge of the bed. The medium size rocks would be placed amongst the larger ones to keep them in place or tucked in to hide the bare spots. The smaller rocks that I pulled from the vegetable garden and every place else I was digging - I'd keep in buckets and then dump a full bucket in behind the larger rocks. For the most part, these would help with the frost heaving the wall over the winter - of course there were some years I'd have to replace or wedge some of the rocks back in :) I'd always try to save the flatter rocks to place on top and then fill in around them with soil for planting. Not exactly a "stone mason method", but it worked for me!

This is one spot where I had a bad slope for walking out into the back yard. I decided to save some of the rocks and used them to make 'steps'. After laying out the pattern, I used some 'crappy' soil for back fill and then topped it off with fine stone that I bought for this path along the house. Scanned picture, so the quality isn't great but you get the idea.