If you're a plant lover who struggles to maintain a garden, olla irrigation can help your plant life flourish while doing most of the watering for you.
TikToker Osa Atoe (@potterybyosa) shared how she uses ollas to keep her garden perfectly hydrated.
@potterybyosa No snow here! #zone10a #ollagarden #gardening #sustainablegardening #waterconservation #clay #pottery #ceramics #plants #ancientwisdom #wintergarden #oldtechnology #olla ♬ The First Garden - Stevie Wonder
The scoop
When a gardener buries an olla — a porous earthen vessel — neck-deep in the soil and fills it with water, the plants can draw out the water through its walls as needed.
Osa makes her own pots, as she demonstrated in her video, but you don't need to be skilled at the pottery wheel to give olla irrigation a shot. In the video, Osa recommended using two generic terra cotta planters sealed together if you don't have an olla vessel readily available.
"The water slowly releases into dry soil, and then the roots pull in this water through osmosis," Osa explained in the voiceover.
This way, if you're not blessed with a green thumb, you don't have to worry about overwatering, underwatering, or forgetting to water your plants on schedule. Your plants absorb only the moisture they need.
"Ooo love this!" one user commented. "Would love to try when I get to have a garden."
How it's helping
If you've owned plants in the past, you may have had a few maintenance mishaps. Manual watering takes time and ample planning to keep up and, according to FloraFlex, often results in uneven patches and nutrient waste, even after you've been holding the hose for hours. In fact, many first-time plant owners tend to overwater.
Ollas reduce the overconsumption of water in gardens by about 70 percent, Dagny from the Cottage Peach reported, significantly cutting down your water bill and minimizing weed growth. Since your plants are getting the exact hydration they need, your garden gets to flourish, too.
"[Olla gardening] conserves water and promotes deep root growth," Osa continued in her video, "and also supports sustainable, low-maintenance plant care."
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Several hours a week 🧑🌾 Moreover, the ease of using ollas for garden maintenance is encouraging more people to give gardening a try.
In her article, Dagny recounted her experience with arthritis; now that she uses ollas, she doesn't need to bend down or kneel to tend to her plants. If you're facing similar accessibility issues — or simply keep too busy a schedule to add "water plants" to your weekly task list — ollas might be the way forward.
Growing your fruits and vegetables in your backyard is a proven win-win-win for your wallet, your health, and the environment. Just six small garden beds can save you over $600 per year, according to Abundant Mini Gardens, while the cost of maintenance would run you less than $30 per year.
Since you don't have to drive to your local grocery store to pick up your weekly supply of greens, you're also cutting down on your carbon pollution while opting for gut-healthier, homegrown produce.
What everyone's saying
TikTok commenters were eager to implement Osa's hack in their own homes.
"Pretty cool!" one user said.
"Do you think it would work with a house plant?" another wrote.
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