Gardener shares ancient, money-saving hack for healthy and productive plants: 'Very cool'

As summers get longer, hotter, and more humid because of rising global temperatures, you may be wondering how to keep your plants surviving and thriving during these extended, extreme heat waves. Well, look no further. 

A post on the r/VegetableGardening subreddit showcases the use of ollas, ceramic jars frequently put to use in a centuries-old system of irrigation. 

The original poster installed them at the beginning of their summer in Georgia. "I didn't lose one plant," they said.

The scoop

The science behind olla irrigation is somewhat complex, but thankfully, you don't need to know its ins and outs to use it successfully.

First, bury the ollas about one to two inches under the surface and pack the surrounding soil to prevent air pockets. Then, for maximal effect, place more every two to three feet around the garden. If your soil goes especially deep, place a saucer underneath the olla to instigate water seepage outwards rather than downwards. Finally, cover their openings to minimize evaporation from inside. 

Ollas are not one-size-fits-all gardening fixes, however. They're particularly effective when used on crops with fibrous roots, like tomatoes or squash, and work best in coarse or sandy soil.

How it's helping

As the original poster stated, a major reason to use ollas is because their self-sustaining structure suits them well to maintaining plant health during particularly arid weather. But, as for gardening in general, there are many benefits to greening your thumbs.

Of course, there are the inherent benefits of being able to not only grow your own food but to grow better-tasting food untouched by the agribusiness industry. Gardening is also clearly a net good for your local environment, as buying and/or planting flora is an easy shortcut to maintaining beautiful and healthy surroundings. But an exciting, if underrated, aspect of gardening is just how great it can be for your health.

Clearly, working outside for hours in warm weather doing manual labor is going to improve your physical well-being, but multiple studies have been done in recent years illustrating just how positive an impact gardening can have on mental health, both for individuals and for a community. Simply put, there is an immense upside to starting a garden and essentially no downside.

What everyone's saying

Because ollas are only good in certain conditions and they have a somewhat complex set-up, many people don't know about them, even gardening enthusiasts. Thus, many of the comments on this post consisted of questions being asked of the original poster (to which, to their credit, they responded to many). 

How often will you be gardening this summer? Every day 🥗 At least once a week 🥕 At least once a month 🌱 I don't garden 🚫 Click your choice to see results and speak your mind.

Several commenters chimed in with compliments and corroboration.

"They work really well," wrote one Redditor. "I used them on my raised-bed last year, with a self-made setup that filled them up by gravity from a big water-tank." They attached a photo, to which the original poster responded with encouragement.

"Very cool!" read another response. "Never seen this before and was excited to see something new and useful… Well done and inspiring!"

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