Make your own Olla!

these simple terracotta pots are going to become my irrigation system today I am making my own oils oils are an ancient watering system they have been used for generations and they use these lovely terracotta pots terracotta is a semi-permeable material so water is able to seep out of these that's what makes these so efficient when these are buried in your garden your plant roots are able to attach themselves or come close to this pot and basically draw out the water just the amount that they need so it's a very slow irrigation system this may not be able to completely replace your irrigation system it should at least increase the time between waterings especially if you go on vacation these are really helpful for making sure that you don't lose your plants in the heat of Summer you can buy pre-done oyas online but um they probably cost anywhere from 20 up to over a hundred dollars depending on what kind you get but I decided I was going to make my own because it's a lot cheaper these were um not even ten dollars for this a large pot and it's so easy to make I'm going to be doing two different ways and two different sizes and see how they work the materials that you'll need is your terracotta pot and you'll need the saucer that comes with the pot with my other system you'll need two terracotta pots as well as the saucer and then you'll need some waterproof silicone and for one of the methods I'm going to try it with some Putty um Leah where'd you take my putty that was a close save um I almost couldn't find my putty because Liam took it but I did find it I'm gonna try for the smaller one to also use a coin this is to plug up one of the holes so one of the first methods we're going to try is using this putty to plug up the hole on the bottom then reason for this is if you filled this with water and you left that hole open it would just completely drain out and you don't want that you want this plugged up so that it'll seep through slowly through the edges I'm just gonna kind of put this on the side this is more just so I can use my silicone around it plugged up on the bottom now we're going to use our silicone to completely fill up a little extra little heart make sure it's really scooped up on there this is cotton underwear from another project we're doing in the garden so stay tuned for that one also going to add some right along the inside make sure the silicone is food grade I'm gonna use my finger just make sure this is completely sealed around there and we're now we're gonna let it dry the other option you have is to seal it with you can put a coin that is larger than the hole on the bottom there and then uh seal it from this side first and then on the inside so with the coin method I'm going to put some silicone along the bottom here I'm going to place my coin in the center of that make sure this part is completely sealed off too and then we're going to add a little more silicone along the bottom covered and sealed I have seen some people use just one burying it and filling it with water but I've also seen some people stack two pots and so I'm going to go ahead and do that with the smaller one I'm going to add some silicone this is going to be a bit messy and not pretty whatsoever along the edge we're gonna do it on the edge of this one making sure that only one of these pots is sealed and the other one the hole is open so you can put water in it now we're going to put these together all right run my hand along the edge I'm gonna let this dry and then I'll probably add another layer of silicone around the edge so here are all my pots they are sealed they're drying this one is the double one trying out now the silicone says it takes a as little as 30 minutes to dry and then it's waterproof but because of how thick this seal is it's probably going to take longer than that so I'm basically going to wait till it's I touch it and it's completely dry and hard so this is the next day these it took a while for the silicone to fully dry just because and hardened because of how thick this is but you can see it is nice and firm now and so now I'm going to test and see to make sure that this isn't leaking so I'm going to fill these with water to start foreign so I don't see any leaking happening from there and that's good news we want the water to be seeping from the to weep kind of be drawn out from the pot the terracotta pot and not come out the bottom here otherwise all the water would just drain right through that hole so quick so um that's really good this one's working well now let's check the next one same looking good all right now that these are done I'm going to be planting them in my garden so the the first place I'm gonna put them is my tomato bed and I have some space in the center of my bed between my tomatoes just realize that when you put these in your garden that they are taking up space that you could maybe put a plant there so in that regard maybe they're not the most efficient use of space but with how well they water and they do that slow irrigation I think it's worth it at least adding some to your garden start by just creating a dinner so I know about how much space to dig out this tomato bed is nine feet across and four feet wide and I think that only two of these pots are necessary to water this bed I'm gonna have to play it by ear and see but I'm gonna try two to start and then I may have to add more but probably one more if I did but as far as I can tell these should water about four to five feet radius um or should say diameter four to five feet uh circumference area here is what they should water so I hope that makes sense there we go put this lid on for now just to fill in the soil without getting a bunch inside it's best to add these oils to your garden when your plants are still small that way you can make space for them this system is probably particularly helpful for young plants that are getting established all right now let's fill this baby up with some water so we're gonna put the lid on there we go I'll probably a few times a week come and uh lift that up see how much water is there how much has drained and also just check the soils see kind of how moist things are and um so I can kind of see how this works so I just finished showing you how I planted my um large oils in the garden now what about this one that I have made you can make this with your larger terracotta pots as well if you have enough space because um just think about like my my beds that I planted it in were a foot deep and so I knew I didn't have enough space to have two of those terracotta pots sealed together but if you can make it like this this is a wonderful way to do it because you have a lot more surface area for water to be released but they do need to be planted a lot deeper I went ahead and did this with a smaller one because I want to put it in my grow bags all containers are notorious for drying out really fast and so this is my my effort to not have to water as much so I'm going to be planting this in with my cherry tomato here we're going to create a really deep space here for this Oya to fit in you don't need to go all the way to the bottom but you do want most of your oil to be buried stick that right in there that looks great my goal is to not have to water these pots very often because of these oyas I have a few pots I'm going to be doing this on this is gonna be a lot trickier to fill just because it's smaller holes there you go so now you've seen how oils can be used in your pots as well as in your garden it is a weak layer and a lot of cooler temperatures I have ended up watering my garden a few times with a wig wag because obviously I don't have these oils throughout my whole garden so they probably haven't been draining as fast as if they're I didn't water but let's give them a check and see where they're at here's the oil in my tomato bed let's see how it looks well first of all I'm going to pull the soil back the soil right around it is really nice and moist still and I watered it a few days ago overhead so that looks pretty good for this oh look at look how much has drained I had it all the way up to this line here so it is working that's what it's supposed to look like let's check the ones in my strawberry patch oh wow that went down a lot too I guess we gotta fill these back up soon I would say the experiment has worked hey hey lean editing late at night and I really want to put this out tomorrow and I realize now that I had not given you an update on the small terracotta pot in the fabric bag so what I've learned is that it does work but it drains really really fast just because there are the water needs are a lot higher for plants and pots because it dries out so fast so it definitely can work but you really have to keep up on it so there were a few times that I ended up having to water anyway just because it was so dry probably need to fill it up every couple days and just be really diligent with that I don't know if it'll go more than a week at least in hot environments um so I think it's still worth it but um it definitely drained a lot faster and so you just have to keep up with it let me know in the comments below if you found this video helpful and if you're going to give it a try in your own garden thanks for watching today be sure that you hit that subscribe button and if you like this video give it a thumbs up as well remember go out and grow something God bless you got a coin foreign [Music]

Channel: Sanctuary Gardens

Views: 3,869

Keywords: olla, oya, ollas, oyas, how to make an oya, how to make an olla, diy olla, diy oya, what is an olla, garden irrigation, irrigation system, water conservation, gardening tips, how to use an olla, how to use an oya, olla watering system, oya watering system, garden watering system, garden irrigation system

Id: 7szNVQJZHtQ

Length: 10min 32sec (632 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 05 2023