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Okay, you're probably all sick of my whining and hand-wringing, so let me say first that I am having a BALL with my first real yard and all the fun planting I'm getting to do.

But I do have a whine. The neighbors on either side of me are laid-back about their yards and don't spray stuff on them, but the neighbor behind me, I just learned, sprays herbicides along the fenceline instead of using a weedeater!!! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

That's where I have my berries newly planted, and when I went back to check on them, the weeds on his side of the fence were all yellowed and wilted, tell-tale sign of herbicide use. The weeds on my side were still going strong, so I HOPE that means it hasn't affected my side much. But now that I think about it, last year there were viny things climbing on that fence that by mid-summer mysteriously wilted and died. I didn't think much about it, because I didn't care whether they were there or not, although there was a wild grape vine that I was hoping to cultivate...

So, what do I do? Do I have to dig up all my berries and move them somewhere else? Is the herbicide going to slowly seep through and kill them? They are only inches from the fenceline. Worse, will it seep through and get into my berries that I feed my kids?

I am so annoyed and upset!

I could ask the owners not to do it, but they rent the place out (it's one of the few places in the neighborhood that is not owner-occupied--lucky us!), and I have never actually met them because they're around so infrequently.

What to do? What to do?

Well, you could bury a solid wall of plastic edging under the dirt, but that would just slow it down, not stop it. Why not bring your berries out into the yard as a show piece, and tell your neighbors, when you DO see them, that if any of that poison crosses your border and destroys plantings, you will sue for invasion of privacy.

If I sue him for invasion of privacy, can he sue me back because my berries are growing over the fence?

This is their first year in the ground, so I don't have any berries to show yet. But I will try to nab him the next time he's out there working and ask him nicely if he'll avoid the poisons in the future. I may even offer to weedeat along his fence while I'm weedeating along mine in the future.

In the mean time, will the current application compromise my berries?

Yes. All you need is one hard rain to have it leech down into the soil. From there it's up through the roots into the berries. And yes, he can sue you if one of your plants crosses the property line and invades his yard. Its like that old problem about a tree on the property line, who's responsible? The answer is whomever has the trunk is responsible for the tree. Since the berries are rooted on your property, your responsible if they spread over the line into his yard.

I think that giving your neighbor the information about what his herbicides are doing to your plants is step #1. He may not know. Then perhaps some written info about the health dangers of those chemicals, especially if he has children. Then the offer (which is incredibly nice of you!) to help him with edging.

If none of that carrot stuff works then comes the stick! Which could be informing the owner and/or taking legal action.

I have the exact same problem and moved all my blackberries to a diffrent location. Now I have to worry about drift killing shrubs on the fenceline. I have convinced him to at least wait until winds aren't blowing. I also have him convinced not to spray when veggies are growing or he won't get any because they'll be dead. My neighbor is not an environment friendly person. Good luck.


Dirt

Some people only care about speed and efficency. Luckly I'm really lazy so I gave organic gardening a chance!

Thanks everyone for your replies! I tried to find a phone number for the owners, with no success. But, thanks to the fact that our county's public records are all on line, I did find the owner's full name, and of course I do have an address. So I'm planning to send them a friendly little letter introducing myself and politely inquiring about the herbicides, with the mention that I have food plants planted along that fence. I'll include my phone number and hopefully it will be the start of a useful dialog.

I keep forgetting recently that I believe things happen for a reason, and that if things don't happen the way I want them to, it's because there's something better in store. When I remember that, it's much easier to stop hand-wringing.

About the berries, I did a little on-line research on Round-Up, and learned some things that are discouraging and encouraging at the same time--namely, that it and similar products are used on a regular basis in commercial production of berries of all sorts. In fact, it is generally sprayed directly on the plants. This is bad, of course, because it means all non-organic commercially produced berries have residue or at least contain traces of the chemical. But it also means that it probably won't kill my berry plants.

My thinking is that I will leave the berries where they are, not worry too much about the poison for now, and try to prevent it from happening again through dialog. Perhaps these events will have a farther-reaching positive effect if the neighbor learns something.

Certainly I've learned something.

One more thing--apparently, calcium and magnesium inhibit uptake of the chemical in Round-Up (I learned this on Round-Up's own site, where they were saying that hard water can affect the performance of their product). So can I perhaps add these two things to my water and protect the plants somewhat? What would be the best way to do it?

Thanks again for all the thoughts, ideas, and support.

Heather

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Why was the very first response to this question "Threaten to SUE!"?

Heather, you live in proximity with other people. They currently have the right to do what they will to their property, as you have to do with yours.

The level-headed thing to do is not CONFRONT about the use of herbicides/pesticides, but to REQUEST and OFFER, as you have mentioned in your responses.

I grow clover, and I don't even have a fence in the front yard to protect my yard from my neighbour's Weed-n-Feed. I'm also downstream. Because I have chemical sensitivities, I requested that he switch from the water-based applications to the pellet applications. He didn't do that. So I requested that he let me know when he is about to apply that stuff, or let me know that he has just applied that stuff, so I could avoid the property line and/or bring in my washing. Since then, we've been OK.

I have three other neighbours who conspicuously use pesticides -- one of them in a pressure can with wand! He just nukes his whole yard back to a brown wasteland, trying to kill the weeds, which always come back two weeks later, without grass crowding them out... SHEESH. The fumes can hang in the air like a miasma of death on a still day, and you can SMELL it, he's that irresponsible. I reported him to the town, after two requests to warn me before doing that, and two asthma attacks that left me with migraines that lasted two days.

So, along that fence that gets sprayed: grow something you're not going to eat or sell. Are you allowed to change the grading slightly, so that you can build a berm to shed water back to his property? Politely request. Politely offer to look after his side for your own peace of mind. Politely inform him that there are organic alternatives, and this is why you use them. And if he becomes as noxious to you as the weeds are to him, well... Escalate, or accept.

But sue???

Hi Elfie Elfie,

Thanks for the thoughts. I also generally believe in dialog as the best way to get things accomplished. And I don't want to start a relationship with a neighbor on a sore foot--there are lots of things he could do to make my life hell if he wanted to, so I definitely want to keep it nice if possible.

I do wonder, though, if it wouldn't help for someone somewhere to set a legal precedent that it is not okay to spray chemicals, even in your own yard, if they are going to leach or drift onto someone else's yard. I think it would have to be someone who has tried the nice route and failed, but I think it might be helpful. Or perhaps the precedent has already been set--I'm not up on my case law LOL. I know you're not allowed to create unreasonable noise levels, at least not around here, and surely spraying noxious chemicals that end up in the neighbor's yard is more invasive than that.

Anyway, thanks for the ideas. I will definitely take them to heart. I haven't written my (friendly) letter yet, but I will do it in the next few days, and maybe that will be enough.

Thanks,

Heather

You could show him that vinegar is cheaper & more effective.

It doesn't have a big marketing budget so he hasn't heard about it. If you're freindly w/ him, you could just strike up a conversation about this great new product you found!

Don't give up on the gentle dialog and living example. When my north neighbor moved in - no LIE - he would walk around the yard in only a pair of shorts with a can of (who knows what - Raid???) and not only spray they yard, but DOUSE HIMSELF! I saw this more than once, so it wasn't some drunken stunt.

Over the years, between sharing information and his wife and I planting the exact same things and watching the difference, they have moved away from a lot of the chemicals. The thing that put her over the fence (so to speak) was when the sunflowers we had grown together the prior year started sprouting in my yard. She was eager to do them again because they are just so cool and she wanted to know if I'd be able to share seeds with her again - and I told her I didn't plant a one. They were all volunteers from last year. Of course, hers had all been nuked by one treatment or another so she didn't have any. I shared some of my seedlings, but we discovered that sunflowers don't really transplant well.

One conversation at a time, one action at a time. It doesn't work everytime, but we can make inroads. I love both Heather and Elfie's approaches. Suing is time consuming, expensive, negative, emotionally draining. Definitely try to kill them with kindness first.

I would think the "precedent" should be set in the town council, or even at the state level, not in the courts. Towns routinely pass bylaws about property appearance, junky cars in the driveway, parking on one or both sides of the street, watering restrictions... You get the idea. Pesticide use easily falls in that area, and bylaw officers can be called in to enforce those bylaws on a by-complaint basis.

Why not lobby your municipality or governor for pesticide controls? I'm sure you'd find a groundswell of support -- it'd take a few years, but so would litigation, and litigation is a lot more expensive, and a lot more acrimonious.

There's probably an "environmental alliance" in your area you could appeal to, for the research and lobbying efforts, especially when DuPont pushes back.

Good news! The owners were in their yard today, and I got to meet one of them. Seems like a real nice fella. His wife (who is not a co-owner--remarried, apparently) was the one who sprayed the chemicals, and he was really amenable to not doing it again. I did offer to weedeat over there--it will add less than five minutes to our routine when we're already doing our own yard. It was in fact Round-Up that she used, and not a very strong application, apparently. It doesn't seem to have spread much, even though it has rained--none of the weeds on my side of the fence are suffering at all from it.

So I'm going to leave the berries in the ground, and next year they will be chemical free altogether.

Heather

That's good news, not having to dig up your poor planties. And hopefully, you've made a new friend, too!