Olla Update

As you all know, I put ollas in my garden this year around my tomatoes.  However, I made one crucial mistake.  I didn't allow enough room to get to them easily.  As the tomato plants grew bigger and bigger, it quickly became like crawling through a jungle when trying to get to the ollas to fill them with water and developed into quite the unpleasant chore. 

Since I was still harvesting tomatoes, up until last Friday, I have not yet dug them up to see if the roots of the plants had grown towards or around the ollas.  Unfortunately, they are now buried under all this snow and my tomato plants are  goners.  So when I am able, I will go out and dig them up and try to see how the roots were growing and try to get a few pictures for the blog.  You dont' even want to see my poor frozen tomato plants.

What I learned this summer was that if you make ollas out of clay pots like I did, it would be wise to to do a couple of things differently than what I did.  The first thing you could do would be to place them along the edge of your garden where they will remain easy to access for filling.   Don't bury them in between lots of plants that are going to get very big in a couple of months.

The second thing you could try is to enlarge the hole on the top pot and install a piece of PVC pipe up to a height that would be easy to fill.  Not sure on the specifics of this, but you could probably drill some holes in the part of the PVC pipe that will go down into the olla to allow the water to come out and fill the olla.  They you could just walk around and fill them from the top of the PVC pipe.  Of course, I have not tried this yet, so it is all theory at this point.

The third thing you could do is to purchase ready made ollas that have the the tall spout on the top that sticks up out of the ground making them easier to fill.  This is really the only problem I have found with using the clay pots.  Since they are flat and at just about at ground level when buried, you have figure out a way to fill them easily.   Each year is a learning experience and eventually I will get this down pat.  If anyone out there has any ideas or knowledge about watering with ollas, I would love to hear your thoughts, experiences or ideas.

In addition to the above mentioned improvements, I also plan to try them in some raised bed gardens.  I have decided that raised beds and container gardens will replace my in the ground gardens as I did not enjoy crawling on my hands and knees through the tomato plants with a hose to fill the ollas.  Plus they are just so hard to work in with all the bending, stooping, kneeling and digging there is to do.   There has to be an easier way and I am going to find it!

But using smaller, raised beds, I may be able to keep the ollas at the perimeter of the raised bed, thereby making filling them much easier.  Or at the very least, eliminating the crawling on my hands and knees part. It would not have been so bad getting between the tomato plants had I not had to get on my hands and knees to do it.

I feel that gardening should be an enjoyable past time.  While it is hard work and challenging at times, why not incorporate things that make it easier and more pleasant, like raised beds.  I will be making mine tall enough that I can sit on the edge of them and do my gardening chores either standing or sitting.  I think that will make gardening much more enjoyable and much less of a chore and perhaps some water saving methods, such as ollas, will be easier to incorporate into raised bed gardens than they are into the ground.

One thing I will report is that I was shocked at how often the ollas went dry.  I was filling them daily until the last 6 weeks or so when I gave up and just watered the tomatoes normally.  So I feel that they must have been doing their job superbly.  The water was definitely seeping out and I am pretty sure I am going to find lots of tomato plant roots around each one once I can get to them.

All in all I would say that my olla experiment was a success and with some tweaking next year, I think it can be even a greater success.  I will also work on some posts on raised bed, container and window box gardening in the near future.

Olla Update!

When I planted my tomatoes several weeks ago, I also put in some ollas made out of clay pots.  While the plants were small, they seemed to hold water for a couple of days before going dry.  Of course the temperatures weren't as high then as they are now either.  Now that the tomatoes are well over 3 feet tall and the temperatures are higher, I am finding the ollas are drying out daily.  So this tells me two things.  One, that they must be working and two, that maybe they aren't large enough.  I still have to water the tomatoes as well, but I am trying to do it every other day and let the ollas water them on the off days.  Since most of them now either have tomatoes on them or flowers, I am assuming my watering is sufficient.  I was hoping to only use the ollas, but the tomatoes were wilting, so I have had to do some additional watering.

Anyone who gardens knows that it is a constant learning experience with lots of experimenting going on.   Especially with vegetables.  Lots of trial and error.  But each year you can put that knowledge to use and have a better garden than you did the year before.  So next year I will make ollas that are double the size of the ones I am currently using and see how that works.  I will then take the ones I am using now and put them in another location. Perhaps around some zucchini plants or in the spaces between the green beans. 

I am also wondering if I perhaps I didn't bury deep enough.  Traditionally made ollas have a neck and you bury them up to the neck.  Since I used clay pots, mine have no neck and so I had to make sure the top of the pot was accessible, which means some of the pot is sticking out above the soil line.  So now I am wondering if I could attach a small piece of PVC pipe into the hole on the top of each olla and fill it through the pipe. This would enable me to bury the whole pot well below the soil line and just leave the PVC pipe sticking up.  This would actually be helpful because I could make the pipe any length I want and eliminate bending and kneeling in order to reach the olla to fill it.  So stay tuned for my olla modifications next spring!

If you are using ollas in your garden this year, let us know about it.  We would love to hear how our customers as using them in their gardens and what their experiences are.  I think they are a great alternative to overhead watering and I am determined to use them in my vegetable gardens as much as possible.

Olla Project

At the Earth Fair last Saturday, I introduced a new way of watering.  Unglazed pots buried in the garden are called ollas and are an ancient way of irrigating.  However, they are very efficient and so I felt they would be worth a try. 

You can purchase ollas ready made and they run between $20 and $30 depending on the size.  Or you can make your own by using unglazed clay pots that you can pick up at the nursery or craft store.  They come in a variety of sizes and are very inexpensive to make.  I will do a separate post on how to make one and include pictures.

Jerry and Jeremy were good enough to make me a couple of acrylic boxes so that I can see how the olla is working.

While I will be putting ollas in my own vegetable garden, I thought it would be fun to see how the plants in this container do.  Obviously it is not an idea container since it has no drainage holes, but it is for studying purposes, so we will just do the best we can with it.

I will post pictures of the ollas I put in my garden as well, but that is a few days off.  In the meantime, we will follow my planter here at the water district.  I will be keeping track of how often I have to fill the olla and how well the plants seem to do.



Acrylic planter box with two marigold plants and one olla made from two unglazed clay pots.



Close up of olla in the ground and filled with water.

You can see where the dirt is moist.

Monday Musings

I am so happy to see some sunshine today!  Do you ever notice how the weather affects your mood and energy levels?  It seems that during the snowy, rainy &  foggy weather, I don't function very well.  My brain seems to be foggy and I have no desire or energy to do much of anything but lay around and drink hot tea.  But once the sun comes out, it is like someone changed my batteries.   I am re-energized and ready to tackle projects that I have let slide for months.

This week promises the arrival of spring like weather and I for one, am very happy about that.  I know we need the snow, but I really am anxious to get back to outdoor activities.  I hope by the end of this week, that I can see the ground in my garden again.  I have lots to do out there and it is time to get started.  Here at the water district, we will be working on some projects such as using ollas for conserving water when watering the garden, composting for soil improvement and water retention and rain water harvesting for making use of the moisture that falls from the sky.  All of these things are key to conserving water while still  enjoying the delightful benefits of a home garden.

Some of these projects will be done at my personal garden.  Since I was planning to do them anyway, I am more than happy to report the results back here on the blog so that everyone can benefit from what learn.   I am also looking forward to touring  a local garden that uses rain water harvesting in their garden.  Rain water is so much better for plants and between using that for the landscape and ollas for the veggie garden, I am hoping to reduce my outside water use drastically.  Of course you can put rain water in your ollas as well.

It is my hope that by using a variety of gardening methods, I can show people how to use water wisely and efficiently, thereby enabling everyone to have a garden they can  enjoy while doing what is right for the earth and conserving our precious water resources.  It is easy to get lax about water use when we have had a wet winter, but just remember that  we never know if we will receive abundant moisture or not during any given winter,so it is best to use as many water conserving techniques as possible, no matter what the moisture situation is like.  Conserving today, provides for tomorrow!

So here is hoping for springs arrival and getting started on some of my garden projects!

March is here!

March has arrived and even though there is a lot of snow on the ground, it is fairly nice out.  So I guess that means that March has come in like a lamb.  The rest of the week doesn't look too bad weather wise.  Hopefully some of this snow will melt before we get any more. 
As we enter into March, it seems like winter will soon be a distant memory.  March 20th is the day spring officially arrives.  Hopefully, the arrival of spring won't mean the end of our moisture for the season.  I am hoping that we receive more moisture for several months yet.

In the meanwhile, it is nice to start thinking about the garden.  I will be heading off the hill soon in search of clay pots for my olla project.  I will be posting my progress on that project, here on the blog.  Olla's shouldn't be used around trees or any type of bush or plant with woody roots, as the roots will break the pot.  But they will work great in the veggie garden, in flower boxes, raised bed gardens, containers and hanging baskets.  From the research I have done, it seems they are a very good way to water outside and conserve water at the same time.  There is virtually no waste involved since the pots are buried underground.  Much more efficient than even drip irrigation.  So I am going to give it a try!

Those of us that like to eat organically and grow our own food are in a kind of catch 22.  Growing food takes water, there is no way around that.  So when you are trying to conserve water, do you forgo vegetable gardening?  I hope not.  That is why I will be doing this experiment with the ollas.  It is my goal to grow my own vegetables as well as conserve water.  Down the road., I will also be working on a rain water harvesting system and will post that project as well once I get to it.  My eventual goal is to harvest enough rain water that I can water outside all summer long without tapping into my hose.  Since plants do better on rain water anyway, this would be a win win situation.  But one project at a time.

It should be an interesting summer.  I am anxious to see how the ollas work and how much water it saves.  So stay tuned!