This hack to water your plants is seemingly nothing short of a miracle — it ensures the perfect amount of water for your garden and is actually easier than just spraying it with a hose.
How does olla watering work?
"Olla," which means "pot" in Spanish, is the use of a terracotta pot to allow the water to slowly seep into the garden rather than pouring it all on top with a watering can.
Dagny Kream (@thecottagepeach) demonstrated this for Instagram users in one of her many reels about gardening. "The concept of using ollas as an irrigation system goes back thousands of years and has been used in countless cultures around the world," Kream wrote in the caption.
She explains that terracotta pots are porous, so they allow water to seep through the sides.
In the hack, she plugs up the hole in the bottom of a terracotta pot, and then puts it in the dirt in the middle of her garden, burying it up to the top so that it creates a hole in the garden.
This hole can then be filled with water, which will seep through the sides of the terracotta pot as the soil dries out, leaving you with a perfectly watered garden.
These pots only need to be refilled every three to five days and can water plants up to two feet away on all sides. Best of all, they actually help to strengthen the root structures in your plants and eliminate surface water evaporation — when the top of the soil dries out but the bottom is still damp — which can cause an issue, particularly for tomatoes.
"As the soil dries out, it's going to pull moisture from the inside of the pot to outside, I wish it was that easy for me to stay hydrated," Kream explains.
How it's helping
This hack not only gets you a healthier garden, but Kream also mentioned that the terracotta pot she was using cost only $5 — a convenient, cost-effective way to grow an abundance of produce or gorgeous flower beds. And as an added bonus, if you're growing perennials like the Russian sage, you'll be saving even more.
While a thriving garden is great for your wallet and home aesthetics, it is also a great way to help out the environment.
Plants already fight air pollution by absorbing carbon pollution and releasing it again as oxygen. Growing your own produce also cuts out the need for your fruits and veggies to be transported from a farm, sometimes far away, to your local grocery store. This eliminates the polluting gases that occur during transportation — which the agricultural industry contributes over 10% of worldwide.
What everyone's saying
Some commenters on the post were excited to give it a try, while others could vouch that it was a great hack.
"Love this concept so much! It's a game changer in the garden," said one user, and another confirmed, "Did this in my small veggie garden this year and it worked like a charm."
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