Ola Olla!

Gardener:Neil

Date:23 Oct 2023

Blog Type:Vegetables

Sounds great in Spanish, but in English it is Hello Pots!

The terracotta pots that are buried in the ground to water plants, as done in ancient mesoameroca and Northern Africa to prevent drought and preserve the precious commodity.

Tradionaly they are long necked bulb like pots with a lid, the water seeps out via "water tension" or " Osmosis" but enough of the big words. Basically plants planted near will grow roots towards the damp clay and use the water it need, the more they drink the more they seep.

These clay pots are not available and the modern versions are expensive, so I decided to try make my own to see how well they work.  YAY I love a trip to Bunnings 😂

18 terracotta pots, some irrigation pipe, glue stick for the hot glue gun and a bucket. The T  and elbow prices I have in the shed. An hour of fiddling we have a kit. 

One negative I found is the soil disturbance to bury them, but it did give me the opportunity to get a good few raspberry roots out and also have a look at what is going on under the bed. All wss good, decent worms, great soil and lots of activity. 

The bucket filled, and everything connected the light terracotta turned dark and moist as they filled with water. The terracotta can't be too thick and  pure water is needed as minerals block up the micro porous nature of the terracotta. Topped up with soil and the bed planted with lettuce, parsley and basil, let's see how this goes!

Hope the weather is kind to everybody. 

Ola Olla!