Ollas for my asparagus bed

An olla is a ceramic jar used for cooking, storage and other purposes. They have been used in traditional cultures in the southwest for irrigation. You bury the jar to the neck in the garden, fill it, and the water seeps out to irrigate the crops. Since asparagus roots are quite deep, I thought this would work better to water near the roots (the drip system in our yard is in dire need of repair. It leaks everywhere).

I planted the ollas with the asparagus 4 years ago. During the first winter, I managed to crack two of the pots and so have had issues the past two summers. I decided to replace the broken ones this spring. This is what it looked like before I started. The first and last in the row are the broken ones.

 When I dug the two broken ones out, this is what I found. The one on the right still held the water fairly well, but the one of the left had cracked in 2 pieces.

 I read about making a substitute olla from clay pots, so I decided to try. Here are my raw ingredients.

I am using gorilla glue, so I first wet the base and the top of the pot.

 Next I glued the base and the top just to be sure to get a good seal.

I didn't have a clamp, so I put my 4 pound weights on top to 'clamp' them together for a few hours.

 I had to dig the holes a little bigger to fit these in as they are wider than the old ollas.

Since some of the dirt had washed out the past year, I finished up by refilling my raised bed with more top soil. For those wondering, I use double height raised beds but fill only half way to discourage the critters from enjoying my garden. I have cardboard under the dirt and a lot of compost as well. Since we have deer, javelina, rabbits, skunks, chipmunks, squirrels and lots of birds, this discourages them from foraging in the garden. It is not entirely successful, but it helps. Our HOA rules forbid adding a fence to our yard to screen them out entirely.

Now we just wait for the asparagus to start rising through the dirt to harvest it. It should appear by the end of April. I will have to see how successful these new ollas are.