HelpfulGardener.com

Hello!

I'm planning to build a garden raised bed next to a property line (it's south facing and the only place in the yard with full sun, so it's hard to find a better spot for the beds). However, I'm worried about pesticide/herbicide/dog poop run offs from my neighbor. I don't want to be a nosy, demanding neighbor, but I also want my bed to be as safe as possible. Is there any way to build the bed that will prevent this. Details of the area below:

- Our house is on a very gradual slope and my neighbor's property is higher than ours. Run offs is a certainty.
- I'm planning to build the beds with landscape retaining wall blocks on the side of our yard and potentially nothing between the fence and the bed (since it is on the slope, there might not be a need for any retaining wall/divider between fence and bed as the fence might be ground level with that side of the bed.)
- Fence is wood
- They have 4-5 dogs, so I'm sure the dog poop alone could have some impact.
- I live in the pacific northwest so there will be lots of rain run offs.
- Height of bed might be 1-2 feet depends on the slope.

Thoughts, I thought of having cinder blocks between the fence and the bed to give some sort of barrier but the reality is that water will do what water will do. I'm not really sure if the cinder blocks will give my crops any protection. Any thoughts on how I could give my beds more control about run offs? I also thought of doing a counter slope with my raise bed so that water wont run into the bed, but that would just give me a big puddle around my fence.

Hmm... this is a tough one. As much as I prefer direct ground contact design, you may need to look into construction that provides ground contact barrier, like the kind they build for urban gardens with contaminated ground soil....

What size raised bed(s) were you thinking of building?

I'm hoping to build a very long bed that runs the length of the fence (as much space as I can get because it is the only spot in my garden where I get full sun since I'm surrounded by trees). I want the bed to be about 3-4 feet in width for reach-ability and for my back. Depth/how tall the bed is, is flexible.

Thank you for replying and might I ask for any more information on the urban beds that you mentioned? Do they line the beds with plastic landscaping materials of some kind? Thanks!

Does the neighbor clean up after the dog?
Does he use herbicides on his lawn?
Does he spray the entire area with pesticides?
What will you be growing?
How much of a drop from his yard to your yard?
Build the beds 18" high on the lowest side, and I would imagine you should be ok.
I would also put blocks on the high side too!

You could build a container garden instead with modular containers built totally off the ground. You could build them with cedar or redwood. You could also use the farm water troughs.

You could also try making a swale of sorts between your future beds and the neighbors property, if your really concerned, you could even line the swale and divert to another area, but quite honestly I don't think you should have a problem, unless the man is out there slinging DOG $hit by the fence and spraying herbicides and pesticides in large quantities daily.

I do get where you are coming from, it's the opposite with my neighbor on one side, but he benefits from my watering and composting as seen in this pic, but proves your point. Where his yard is lush and green is where my yard drains, the houses were built on a hill and the upper yard drains into the lower yard, each yard has a 4" city drain.


I leveled my yard and put in a fence, years later I installed hugelkultur beds, this all looks great but traps my water in the yard as it doesn't drain like it was designed. I have been working on this problem over the years.



My neighbor on the other side... I could go on forever about her but her yard was so trashed that her yard drain had 4-6" of soil in it and it wouldn't drain, during heavy rains my pond and patio would flood out almost coming into the house. My yards drain couldn't handle the volume of water from her yard and my yard during heavier rains. I finally got smart and built up the area between the properties, a sort of berm. I then secured x 6" x 6" on the patio and siliconed in place as a barrier on the patio.

Its built up with stone and soil behind the pond and playhouse





Its hard to see but on the patio behind the 2 chairs is the 6x6.


I didn't want to build the fence but I had to, not only was her yard a total eyesore stuff always ended up on my patio and patio furniture like bleach, cleaning sprays, paint, deck stain etc...
I finally told her she needed to spray her patio down after the dogs urinated on it, the smell built up over weeks and would actually make your eyes water.

Sadly for her, about a year after my preventative construction, she got flooded out and her basement was trashed, shortly after she cleaned out her drain and hasn't had problem since. took her all but 10 minutes, whereas it took me major construction over the course of a few years.

Anyhow back to the first picture, looking at my neighbors yard if he were to build an 18-21 inch raised bed, I don't think anything coming from my yard into his would affect anything in those taller beds.

Now on my back fence I am the lower yard and I am connected to two yards. I built a raised bed here (retaining wall and fence)

This retaining wall is at least 12" lower than the two yards above me.


I don't know if they spray or what, I think the one guy does, the neighbor next to him had one dog and a cat that always messed in my beds, other than that, everything seems fine. So far no problem.