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.
Since all the plants in my yard are convinced spring is here, it is time to do some yard work. I spent a lot of time Saturday and Monday cleaning up and planting. Of course, there is still so much to do, but I am happy with the progress so far.
First, some general clean up. I removed the mulch from the strawberries and the asparagus. This is the asparagus bed. Those things in the middle are ollas, a traditional deep watering method. Two of them broke the first winter, and another post will show how I'm replacing them with an improvised option rather than spending twice as much to buy new-and then have them shipped.
One of the trees in the front died, so I have planted a dwarf peach. We love peaches. Hope this does better in that spot.
Just above the peach, there is a space in the fence for a planting. We've put in pansies this year.
The two blue pots here contain new blueberries. The white one has a two year old plant. They sit in the entry way on the steps approaching our front door.
Just outside the front door, I planted a hyacinth last spring which you can see is already in bloom and smells heavenly. I planted two new ones this week. They should be blooming in a couple of weeks.
On the fence just past the hyacinths is a pot of raspberries. This variety is supposed to do well in pots.
Just to the right of the raspberry, you can see these pinks. They are similar to carnations but should be sturdier in my climate. We'll see. I love carnations.
Along the same wall with the pinks is my herb garden. New this spring is this lonely parsley plant. It sits between thyme and oregano which are veterans of the garden.
On the other side of the oregano are these six strawberry plants. They get full sun most of the day. The real question is whether they will survive the rabbits in the yard.
The rest of the strawberries are in an abandoned fountain. Two have been in there a couple of years. The rest are new.
Above the strawberries are the violas. They give a nice pop of color at the end of the walkway.
So that's the first phase of the spring garden work. I have some tomatoes started on a window sill in the kitchen. I hope to plant them outside in a few weeks.
The garden stores are selling tomato plants, but the last frost date is in May and I am afraid to plant them outside this early. By May, these should be a good size to go out. I might put them out sooner with protection. I haven't decided yet.
