Olla version 2.0

So last week I showed off my first attempt at creating do-it-yourself ollas to provide moisture to garden plants using less water.  As I explained in that post, ollas are unglazed clay pots, which when submerged in soil and filled with water gradually provide moisture to surrounding plants as needed without the loss to evaporation that occurs when plants are watered by hand or automated sprinklers.  However, as noted in my prior post, the first three I tried were draining much more quickly than I'd imagined.  I mentioned an alternative approach that could provide deeper watering without requiring refilling as frequently but I hadn't planned on changing out the original ollas for a new model right away.

That changed due to the intervention of another party.

This is a 2015 photo of a raccoon I'd confronted in my back garden early one morning and tried to chase off.  He turned on me in the driveway and stared me down until he finally rambled off.  Raccoons have been regular visitors since we moved in but this is one of the only daylight shots I have as they generally prowl under cover of night.  They love water and seem particularly adept at finding it.

The fault doesn't lie entirely with the raccoon.  I decided to swap out the clay lids I'd placed atop the original ollas with larger plastic pot saucers to cover the above-ground rims of the pots more completely.  I didn't stop to consider that the light plastic lids might encourage mischief on the part of raccoons - until the next day when I realized that all three lids had been tossed aside and that the bottle caps I'd used to seal the bottom of the submerged pots had all been pulled out.  The water inside the pots was mostly gone and each pot was partially filled with soil.  But at least the pots themselves hadn't been pulled up!

At that point I abandoned my version 1.0 design.  I purchased silicone sealant and rubber stoppers for an olla to be created by joining two clay pots at their rims.  After cleaning the original pots and removing the putty I'd used to seal the bottom of the version 1.0 pots, I got some help from my husband in applying the sealant.  I hadn't realized that I needed a caulking gun to apply it but luckily my husband had one.

With a rubber stopper inserted in one pot, we applied sealant to prevent the plug from coming out.  We then applied sealant around the top of each of the 2 pots we planned to join together.  It was a messy process, especially as the sealant ended up coming out the bottom of the container rather than through the tip.

 

 

I used four 5.5-inch pots to create two of the new version 2.0 ollas because that's what I had on hand.  Like version 1.0, I still consider this an experiment.  The 8-inch pots remain hard to find, as well as being significantly more expensive.  However, if this design works well, I'll look into creating more ollas using larger pots.

 

Although the seller claimed the sealant would be dry and waterproof within 2 hours, we gave it a full day.  The completed ollas are 10 inches tall and 5.5 inches in diameter at their widest point.

The biggest design flaw with version 2.0 is that the hole in the upper pot that sits just above the surface of the soil is only about half an inch in diameter, which will make it a little more difficult to fill

As a reminder, here's a photo of the original olla pots in place in my back garden:

Photo taken when the clay saucers were still in place as lids

And here's a photo of the olla version 2.0 pots in place:

This time, I soaked the ollas before putting them in the ground.  I also watered using a surfactant (wetting agent) as Horticat at PlantaHolicOz suggested.  I've used surfactant before to break the surface tension in the soil when it's so dry that the water just sheets off without sinking in.

I used the original clay saucers to cover the holes.  Covered, they don't look any different than version 1.0 from above.  Even if the pesky raccoons shove the lids off, they shouldn't be able to get into the pot with just a small hole on top.

Today is the tenth, and hopefully last, day of our interminable heatwave.  Prospects for a thunderstorm are good but one can never count on rain here until it starts to fall.  Meanwhile, we're all just trying to stay cool.

Pipig, stretched out on the top shelf of her screened catio, trying to stay cool as morning temperatures climbed.  Despite the heat, she's spent more time there than in the house. She really doesn't like air-conditioning.

All material © 2012-2022 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party