Vegetables Gardening - Growing Organic Vegetables

Can you build up a berm along the fence line? Or dig a culvert on your side of the fence?

When we lived in OKC several years ago, we had a similar problem when our neighbors took in their daughter, her family and their three large dogs. We could smell the feces in our yard and garden after each rain. We fixed the problem with a berm up against our side of the fence that diverted their runoff water out to the street (fortunately we had the correct grading to both properties so the water had somewhere to go).

Blessings on you and your group as you work through this.
To: MittleiderMethodGardening@yahoogroups.com
From: jbkennard@foodforeveryone.org
Date: Thu, 27 Oct 2011 16:20:42 +0000
Subject: [MittleiderMethodGardening] Long Beach, California Community Garden - Problem with Runoff from Dog Park

Group: Please consider the following from our "resident disease expert" Joanne, who is troubled with a problem faced by her Community Garden. Thanks, Jim Kennard

Dear Jim,

For several years now, I have been giving advice to the group regarding disease and pest control. Now I need some input from all of the group as to a problem we are having at our community garden.

The Department of Parks has decided to put a Dog Park on the other side of our fence. We will be sharing the fence and that would be fine except, that parcel of land, when it rains (and we get very big rains here that flood us) floods us regularly. That means that when it rains, we will be getting contaminated water into a great many of our garden plots. Water that will carry every disease that dogs carry in their feces.

We have tried to bring this health issue to their attention but they are adamant that this Dog Park is going to be there. We are not against a Dog Park. Just the location.

IF our El Dorado Regional Park did not encompass miles and miles of park, I could see why they are insistent on locating it where they want to. But, they are insistent and will not listen to anything we have to say.

Dog excrement carries many diseases. Even though they say they will grade the area so that there will not be run off into our gardens, there is still potential for that run off to happen. Twice they have promised us that there would not be run off into our community gardens and twice, it has failed and we are flooded with every rain.

Jim, please put this letter out to the group. I am hoping they can give us some ideas on this. The uncertainty of contamination of our gardens is of great concern to me.

It seems like insanity to even think of putting a Dog Park next to vegetable gardens especially when the chance of contamination is one hundred percent. The fact that they will not even listen to us makes me wonder why they think dogs are more important than the health of people.

The sad part is that we, as a community garden, feed the poor. We deliver to the missions and shelters every day. How can we safely do that knowing that our vegetables could carry disease?

Thank you, Jim.

As Ever,

Joanne



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