Category Archives: olla irrigation

The Olla Plan 2013

Posted on May 9, 2013 by jkmcintyre

I have decided to focus my ongoing olla experiment on tomatoes this year. The past two years I grew 4 tomato plants per olla. The tomatoes grew, I did not get split skins from over/under-watering, but the plants sometimes seemed … Continue reading →

Posted in olla irrigation, starting seeds, tomatoes, vegetable garden, vegetable starts | Tagged | 2 Comments

Garden ollas save water in the Pacific Northwest

Posted on April 6, 2013 by jkmcintyre

This is such a cool graph, I had to write a post for it. This is the first empirical evidence that ollas reduce water use in Pacific Northwest gardens. In 2009, I watered our 650 sqft of gardens by hand … Continue reading →

Posted in cistern, olla irrigation, summer, Sustainability, vegetable garden | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Olla Hand Building Class Spring 2013!

Posted on January 13, 2013 by jkmcintyre

Yes! I will be teaching an olla hand-building class this spring at South Seattle Community College. The class will take place over two Saturdays; March 23 and March 30 from 10am-1pm. We will briefly go over the history and how-to … Continue reading →

Posted in ceramics, homemade, olla irrigation, spring, Sustainability, vegetable garden | Tagged , | 9 Comments

Considering Clays for Homemade Ollas

Posted on June 27, 2012 by jkmcintyre

I have made 15 ollas now from 5 clay types, all fired at ‘bisque’ temperatures (cone 06 ~ 1000 degC); Akio, Sculpture Buff, Red Art, Red Art with Sand, Brown Terracotta. The Red Art ollas are beautiful, but became vitreous … Continue reading →

Posted in cucumber, olla irrigation, rain, squash, tomatillos, tomatoes, vegetable garden | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments