Olla experiment

I read a thread on here where someone was talking about ollas. I was so intrigued I decided I just had to try it. I made a couple of homemade ollas out of terra cotta pots siliconed together. I kind of combined the olla and earthbox ideas into one and came up with what you see in the picture. I wanted to really test it so I used high water demand plants, four compact vine cucumbers. I also planted one with two pepper plants. If anybody has used ollas before please tell me about your experiences with them and how they worked.

Here is the one with the two peppers. Murphy obviously thinks I'm crazy, but I have a really good feeling about this experiment. I think it will work better than I expect it to.

These olla's are old terracotta wine bottle holders I found at Goodwill.

Second one

Looks neat - can I ask what is Ollas?
thanks
bre

Google "olla" for an explanation. These are actually faux olla's. Real ones have a round body for holding the water and a long thin neck to discourage evaporation. I use them to help me water in this blazing hot desert. The water weeps from the olla into the soil. I think they are a success. They need to be covered with a terracotta saucer. I used a plate to start out with and the water got way hot. With the terracotta saucer the water does not heat up much at all even at 114 degrees in the afternoon.

An olla is nothing more than an unglazed terra cotta vessel which is buried close to the plant you intend to water. Fill the olla with water and it slowly seeps out watering the plant. From what I have read it is very direct watering, giving the plant, and really only the plant the water it needs. The intended plant will wrap its roots around the olla basically hogging all the water forcing out the weeds. I read they have been used for hundreds of years by the Spanish and Native Americans. So simple and elegant, I'm fascinated.

rlt850nomore--it may have been your thread that I read that mentioned the olla. Have you used them for long and if so how successfully? Ollas are expensive to buy, I will have to start nosing around Goodwill:)

rtl850nomore--After I made my first olla I filled it and set it in the sink. It seemed to weep out and empty fairly quickly. After burying them though they seem to weep out much slower. After a full day the water level has not gone down much at all. Do you find the same is true for yours?

This message was edited Jun 22, 2008 9:28 PM

TMaple, this is the first year for me and my olla's. I was looking for a way to water some pots that were not close to a watering source. And, being in the Southwest, naturally gravitated toward olla's. I too found them pricy and began to research how I could simulate one. I finally found a deep terracotta pot with no hole in the bottom but it was larger at the top than at the bottom and took up too much space in the planter. Then it dawned on me that those terracotta wine bottle holders of old would be perfect. Since I found my first two I have never seen them again. I have several people on the hunt for me as I want to experiment with in the ground olla's for the winter growing season here.

As far as water usage ... yesterday I filled both of them to the brim and this morning they are only half way full. As I mentioned, it was 114 degrees yesterday which may have something to do with the water usage. Also, when it was cooler, the olla did not go down as much. When I first started with the olla's I found I had to wet the soil in the planters to get the olla to start weeping...kind of like priming the pump. The other thing is to soak the olla in a bucket of water prior to placing it in the soil.

Hope your olla's are a great success for you TMaple

I did water the cucmbers and the peppers conventionally after I planted them with the olla, just to get them going. I didn't think of presoaking the olla, that sounds like a key idea. They are easy enough to make and fairly cheap using two pots, I just wonder how well the silicone will hold up. The plastic mulch on my buckets goes a long way to keep the water from evaporating also, so I guess you can't really compare it to one planted in the ground without mulch.

We are just starting to get into the 80's here in MN so we don't have to deal with the heat like you do. As a matter of fact, the closest I have ever seen to 114 degrees was in Mexico. It was 112 one day when I was there on a vacation. Can't imagine living in heat like that, but then people can't imagine living in the cold of a MN winter.

rtl, TPlant,

I've been batting this idea around for a while. I saw an article on the internet where these are used in the African desert with great success. I have a number of places where they should work well. If the plant is a small shrub, how big do you think the olla needs to be?

I did see where someone said that starting cuttings in what she called a forsythe pot worked really well. This is very similar to the ollas. It involves using a plastic pot (with the holes plugged up), filling it with vermiculite, then sinking a smaller terracotta pot (again with the holes plugged up) into the vermiculite. You dampen the vermiculite, soak the small pot, and then sink it into the larger one up to its rim, fill it with water. The water in the small pot weeps out to keep the vermiculite dampened. I've not tried this yet, but I'm going to. The person who gave these instructions swears that it works better than anything else. I can't buy vermiculite here, so I'll have to try using perlite. Problem is that perlite doesn't really work the same way as vermiculite.

Karen

These are the sites I found the most interesting and informative when I was researching ollas. The SLI site has photos of people using ollas from around the world. I will definitely look up forsythe pots:)

SLI website
http://www.seedandlightinternational.org/Photo%20Pages/One/photo_gallery_one5.htm


Scroll down the page to see the info and photos.
http://urbanhomestead.org/journal/2008/03/24/using-ollas/


This is a watering system based on the idea of an olla. I'm working on repicating it with household items for next year.
http://www.wateringsystems.net/index.html


Everything I have read about ollas says to be wary of using them with plants that have strong woody root systems (shrubs and trees) because they eventually break the olla.


This message was edited Jun 23, 2008 9:55 AM

TMaple,

Thanks for the links.

Well, nuts, I guess I won't put them by my crepe myrtle trees then.

I like the system in the last link. What are you thinking of using to replicate it? Considering the pure red clay on this property, I probably should figure out a way to mold my own pots. Put this garbage "soil" to work. LOL.

The articles I found on forsythe pots talk about using cuttings from house plants, but it's my understanding that they work well for cuttings from all different kinds of plants.

Karen

glendalekid--I am making my own ollas out of terra cota pots siliconed together, some cork or rubber stoppers with a hole, some flexible tubing and T-fittings, and a five gallon bucket. I hope it will all work. When I get it done I will post a picture of what I come up with. I like the decorative holding pots they show on the site for the indoor plants or where appearance is important.

I did look up forsythe pots. My local university extension has a very good pdf on making and using one. The first thought that came to mind was using it to root the suckers I pinch off my tomatoes so I can have even more tomatoes. I will build one to see how it works for that. You'll have to let me know how the forsythe pot woks for you.

TMaple,

Yes, post photos of the olla-like watering system when you get it together. I would be most interested in seeing it.

I would think that rooting tomato suckers in a forsythe pot should work fine. I'm going to try to put mine together tomorrow. I was able to buy vermiculite at the Farmer's Co-op yesterday. Last year they didn't even know what I was asking for when I inquired -- gardening supplies are looking up here in AL. I'll let you know how it works for me. I want to try some verbena cuttings.

Karen

glendalekid--Here is my forsythe pot I put together last night. All of the plants being rooted are suckers I clipped off my tomatoes. We'll see how it works. I'm still working on the olla "system" but I'll post a photo when I get something together that I think will work.

The olla experiment is "so far so good". All of the water these plants are getting is coming from the ollas and the plants are all doing very well.

This is the one with the peppers.

TMaple,

I rooted two suckers last year from my tomatoes. It worked really well and they rooted easily. I did it too late in the summer and couldn't keep them going after the weather got too cold. You should be fine, though, starting them this early. I've read that suckers won't produce fruit, but I had a hard time finding suckers that didn't have flowers on them. Sooo. . . what do I know. I didn't get my forsythe pot together yet. Forgot I need a saucer for a cover. Sheesh!!

Your ollas are looking great. It strikes me that using ollas to water container plants is very much like the EBs, except cheaper and easier to put together. Love your ScoopAway pots -- I have them, too! I've been collecting them under my back deck. Now, you've given me a great idea what to do with them. How big of a terracotta pot did you use?

Karen

Thanks SOOOO much for the information in this thread. I had never heard of ollas, and I have a feeling that next year I'm going to be burying them in my raised beds.

glendalekid--I don't know why they wouldn't produce fruit, the suckers of the plants are what makes a vine that produces fruit. We'll see. I used 4" pots for the cucumbers in the ScoopAway tub and 5" pots for the 5 gallon pail that has the peppers in it. The ScoopAway buckets are great for many things, I just wish I could get the label off. They are actually printed on and not a sticker. I knew my wife's cats would be good for something! jk I put a cover on the little terra cotta pot in my forsythe pot just to keep the vermiculite and other things out of it. It is working very well.

Ok TMaple, it seems that the stash of terracotta wine bottle holders has dissappeared from the greater Phoenix area so I am going to have to make some ollas like you did. Will you please tell me which silicone you used to put them together? I have collected some sunflower seed buckets that I am going to use and like your ScoopAway buckets the label is printed on the bucket. I am going to get some paint for plastic at my HD and spray that label away. I need everything to be really white so that it reflects the sun in this blast furnace desert. I am pretty pumped that you, glendalekid, and mgpaquin are jumping on the olla bandwagon.

Hmmm. Anyone from zone 8 that's tried this?? I'm in southeast Arky...hot/humid/dry...

My ollas are working like a charm! I will use them much more extensively next year. When I put my ollas together I just used some silicone calk I had laying around the house. It was some stuff I used for my windows and it was very old. If I were buying some new I would use something marine grade, like what they use in fish tanks. I am curious to see how the stuff I used holds up after a season of being wet and under dirt. I bought some plain cork plugs to plug the hole in the bottom pot.

SherryLike--I am not in zone 8 but I see now reason why the ollas wouldn't work anywhere. Check out the link above for the SLI site and you can see some of the places around the world where they are used.

TMaple,

I did spray some of my ScoopAway buckets with the plastic paint, but not others. Depends on how ambitious I feel at the time, I guess. LOL. I had thought that the lid could be used as the bottom of a homemade EB, but your olla idea is way easier.

I don't know why folks say suckers won't produce fruit. They do on my tomato plants. I just keep reading where the advice is to remove the suckers because they "drain" the energy of the plant by being non-productive. I haven't found this to be true.

Karen

glendalekid--I bet the lids could easily be made into false bottoms for EBs but I find it easier to just stack one bucket inside the other. I also thought the ScoopAway buckets would work well for a "topsy turvy" type of tomato planter but I have enogh experiments going already. Maybe next year:) I still really like my homemade EBs. They are more work to put together but they sure work well.

I let the first couple of suckers above the first blossom cluster form into new vines. All the rest of the suckers on the main vine and the suckers that will form on the new vines I remove, otherwise you get a lot of small fruit instead of a reasonable amount of decent sized fruit.

TMaple,

Well, I'm waiting to see how your ScoopAway olla pot EBs work out -- I think they look like the easiest way yet for an home-made EB. I think you are right that they would work well for a topsy-turvy tomato planter.

Last year I did take the suckers off like you are describing. I can't say that the size or the number of tomatoes was improved by this. But it might have been the varieties I was growing, too. I had Sunmaster, Better Boy, and Arkansas Traveler. Personally, I didn't like any of them, for taste or productivity.

This year I was late getting my seeds started so I bought six plants of Celebrity. I didn't take any of the suckers off and got tons of good-sized tomatoes and they tasted wonderful. Since Celebrity is determinate, they are nearly through.

However, I now have Mortgage Lifter, Rutgers, and Mystery Tomato (seeds from last year's unknown volunteer) about 18" high and starting to bloom. The unknown volunteer was by far the best tomato I had last year, productive and wonderful flavor. I'm hoping it will be as good this year.

Karen

OK, I've gotta ask: do you make holes in the bottom of your litter buckets for your olla containers? I ask because I have 3 cats, and therefore a plethora of litter buckets. No ollas, mind you, but when did something like that stop me? =)

tinabeana,

Got you beat! I've got five.

That's a good question. For using the clay pots and litter buckets to make forsythe pots to start cuttings, you wouldn't put holes in the litter buckets since you want to keep it damp and it only gets water from the seepage of the clay pot inside. I didn't think to ask about holes in them for the olla pots.

Karen

I put holes in the bottom of my buckets even with the olla because I put a simple cork in the bottom to plug the hole. If the cork fails or the silicone holding the two pots together fails the water would drain out and not flood the bucket. Its just a precaution. Also, if you don't use plastic mulch over the bucket a good rain will flood it.

Its not necessary to trim the suckers off a determinate tomato because the plant gets to a certain size and stops. Indeterminate tomatoes will vine and grow as far as they are allowed to. I use trimming the suckers as a way to keep the plants under control. I have 2 early girls, 2 roma, a sungold, a yellow pear, a healthkick, a peron, a better boy, a gran marzano nano, and a paragon all planted in EBs or EPs. I also have a grape tomato and two tomatillos (I know they are not really tomatoes, but...) planted in the ground. They are all doing great, healthy and loaded with blossoms and little tomatoes. They do way better in the EBs and EPs than they do in the ground, in my garden anyway, because of the consistent water supply they have. Part of the reason I am interested in the ollas is so I can plant some in the ground and maybe get results like the EBs and EPs get.

My wife has two "inside" cats and they poop plenty. Thats why I have so many ScoopAway buckets:)

TMaple,

I misunderstood the part earlier where you used silicone to put two pots together. Duh! Somebody want to tell me to pay attention and learn to read? LOL. OK, NOW I understand what you did. Yes, you would definitely want to have holes in the bottom as a precaution. I'm thinking that maybe this would be a good idea for the tomato plants and pepper plants in my raised beds.

Comes the dumb question. If you have the two pots siliconed together with just a little hole in the top of the upper one, how do you tell whether you need to add water to them?

You've got a terrific selection of tomatoes there. I'm the only one who eats the tomatoes, so I don't plant that many. Even so, I give lots of them away. My daughter and granddaughter may not appreciate them, but others do.

Karen

ps: All my cats are inside cats. Have been since the day someone deliberately ran over and killed my favorite buddy years ago.

I just put a stick down the hole in the top of the olla. Put it all the way to the bottom, grab the stick at the top of the olla, and when you pull it out it should show how much water is is the olla as far as full, half full, down 3 inches from the top, etc. This is how I check the water level in my EBs and EPs.

TMaple,

I thought that must be it -- but I wanted to be sure. LOL. I think this is so ingenious -- please keep us informed as to how it's going.

Karen

I found this post while browsing around looking for sites to purchase olla's. I found wine chillers and olla's for reasonable prices at the link below.

http://www.arizonapottery.com/item.asp?iid=4483

TMaple,

So.. what were the results of your olla experiment?

Sorry about the delayed response. I find I don't have the time to hang out on the forums like I did in the past. The experiment was very successful, so successful in fact that I have almost abandoned my self watering containers. I still have a few self watering pails going but now I use ollas for almost everything, especially water greedy and sensitive plants like tomatoes and cucumbers.

Try this link, the one above didn't work for me.

http://www.arizonapottery.com/item.asp?iid=3394

With all this red clay around me, I should be able to make my own olla's from scratch!