Yesterday was a busy day. Having a 3 day weekend pushes me into overdrive sometimes. Besides doing more fall cleaning in the garden, I was drying peppers, putting up seeds that I collected in paper envelopes and making OLLAS!
I think I mentioned ollas before. If not they are basically terracotta pots you bury in your garden to water your plants. The porous surface allows plants to suck out the water when it needs it. It's ingenious and Native Americans have been using this method for a long time. The only problem is that purchasing ollas are freak'n expensive and I'm not rolling in dough like that! So I've been looking for DIY ollas. There are plenty online. One site suggested using plastic water jugs with holes poked in the bottom half of the jug. I tried it and it doesn't work. The water just drains right out and I think that defeats the point of an irrigation system like ollas.
Other instructions suggest gluing 2 flower pots together, which works great if you have an in-ground garden but I don't. My beds are only about 6 to 12 inches high. So instead, I went to my local Home Depot and purchased 1 flower pot and 1 saucer for about $3.50.
Just glue the pot to the saucer with Gorilla Glue (it's water-proof) and clamp it or weight it down as per glue instructions. An iron skillet works great for this! It takes about 2 hours to cure but 24 hours to completely cure. I waited the next day to make sure it was completely cured.
Test your olla for leakage by filling it with water.
This morning I buried my olla...
Fill with water and make sure to cover the hole with a rock or something so you don't have mosquitoes breeding in your olla or critters falling in. That's it! If this works, I'll be making more to dot throughout my garden.
Hey Yoonjo! How have your homemade ollas been working out? Did you decide to make more? I'm so curious what your take on these DIY ones are...
ReplyDeleteThe ollas work GREAT!!! I haven't really watered the one bed that I put the test ollas in and I haven't seen any of the plants wilt during that time. The plants actually look healthier than my other plants that I have been watering by hand. The ollas empty in about a week before you have to really fill them up!! I am definitely making more for my spring planting.
ReplyDeleteWow that is great! I think I need to make some too! How far do you think the moisture is able to travel? Like, how many ollas do you think you'd have to use in a given area?
ReplyDeleteI think I'm going to place about 5 of the 5.5 or 6 inch diameter pots in my 4 X 4 beds. Apparently, the ollas can water an area approx. double the size of the olla. I'm also going to try square ft. gardening in he spring. I think I'd be able to place the ollas easier if it's in a grid pattern and I feel like I could grow more efficiently, too.
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