I did the same thing you are considering during the summer, and my wall between myself and the neigbor is exactly like yours, but textured and painted with 2 heavy coats of exterior paint. The bed portion against that wall is about 40 feet long, with 16" block front (4 high by 4"), and the dirt mounds to about 20" in the back. In between the sturdier support columns and the large drip system cement enclosure I made an interior retaining support system in 2 parts, made up of pressure treated 2x6's nailed to 8' by 2' 5'8 plywood, shaved at the top, and reinforced every 2 feet with 3/4 x 3 foot rebar. It is not visible above the mounding dirt, and it is 6" away from the wall itself. I placed dirt in between but did not pack, and being unamended clay, does not really allow water to soak in thus remaining dry and semi loose underneath. My main dirt area is ammended with peat moss, sand, and mulch, and my drip hoses occupy the area between the retaining system and the wall. I do not believe much weight, if any is against the dividing wall, as I filled it after the main area was filled, and have run a 36" metal spike in there well after and it ws not compacted at all. I finished in July, and the subsequent heavy rains of the summer did not impact the wall at all. If you want some pics, email me @ pheitmeyer@imagetag.com

Hi John 1931, I am a quilter too, so laying out blocks is a nice puzzle. A picture is worth a thousand words, But here's a try. Maybe some index cards or dominoes, Lego bricks, etc would be helpful to fidget with (I used index cards). Lay out a square pattern to show the corners of the first tier, with the blocks making a kind of circle, like this. N N N D B O O D B O O D B H H H (3 letters make a block, the O's are just dirt.) If you now flip that layer over D N N N D O O B D O O B K K K B it will sit on top of the first layer perfectly, and stagger all the joints. Of course you can stretch the sides by adding blocks, but with this corner pattern reversed for each layer, you should need no partial blocks and the joints would always stagger. Just avoid the symmetrical layout: N N N H O H H O H H O H N N N That gets you in trouble on the next tier. Hope this made sense!

I have mine set up along the side of my house so I can attest that you should be fine. The only issue I ran into was the run off from the roof would actually cut a line down through the soil because of the force it came off the sloped roof. I do not have a gutter on that side of my house, so that was the issue. I could have easily fixed the issue by adding a gutter, but instead I opted to build a trellis that runs parallel to the home along the exact drip line of the roof so that the drip actually hits the wood on the trellis and then runs slowly down from there. No more issues. The only down side to being a long any building or wall is the fact that it may block some sun.

Hello. You didn't say whether this is a new home for you. I spent the first year checking out the sunshine in our backyard. My backyard was a south facing yard. The back fence shaded the back yard almost 4 feet into the yard. Which meant I started my first cinder block line just over 4 feet away from the block fence. OR the winter garden would never get any sun. During the summer time, the block fence might radiate too much heat back off the fence. My cinder block garden was 3 cinder blocks tall. 24 inches interior width. I started with 1 brick high. I found the roots didn't have enough room. So I went up to 2 bricks. Again, not tall enough for tomato plants if you bury your seedlings deep like many recommend. So, I went up to 3 bricks high. Perfect for me. I agree with previous posters. If you make the garden too wide, you won't be able to reach all sides of the garden. Important when you are trying to find the peas within the vines, tomatoes under their leaves, or to pull radishes that are ready for your salad. I put the blocks right on the hard AZ soil. I then added mulch, mulch, soil, manure, mulch, manure.... It took almost 3 years to get the perfectly blended soil for all sorts of vege's. Shoveling, raking, and spreading more manure did the trick. I mulched all my kitchen scraps I could. That certainly helped with the health of the soil. Oh by the way, the soil won't bulge out or push the bricks away. At least in my case. Any extra water leaked between some of the cracks and down to the bottom of the bricks. Making sure you have enough water to absorb into the soil so your plants have a chance to drink before it runs out at the bottom. Good luck!!