The Loring Street Olla Project

My garden went from lush, green, and rioting with color, to dried up and dead. And this will happen in the summer here without a steady supply of water,

The severe drought in California is forcing stricter measures to be put into place for the average citizen while Fracking and big water bottling companies like Nestle are pumping water out of our aquifers at a terrifying rate. We're being told that we can only use 35 indoor gallons per person a day, which isn't bad, yet you can still wash your car as long as you have a nozzle on the hose that you can shut off while you soap up. Its not making sense. Total bullshit. We're watching greed and entitlement in its true colors right now. We gardeners and people really working hard to actually conserve our resources are suffering while lawns are still green, water is being bottled for a profit, our dwindling ground water is being sucked up and polluted forever, and you can still wash your car.

 But aside from all of  that, I'm managing to have a small garden this year because I did some research, thought ahead, and took some action. I discovered Ollas. (Pronounced oh-yah) The pretty, large, round ones are just too expensive for my meager budget, but I discovered how to make them myself using plain  terracotta flower pots and matching saucers. People have been using ollas for thousands of years in arid countries. So why not. I bought some pots at that big box home improvement store, but if you are good at scrounging and have cheaper places to shop at, all the better. I made the first batch by just sealing them together with a silicone sealer that comes in a tube for use with a caulking gun, I should have considered whether it was a food grade composition, but I didnt. I read that aquarium caulk is best. I dont think this is a huge deal, but I will be more careful next time.  I made another batch by gluing them together first with hot glue and then using the silicone sealer. Some swear by using Guerrilla Glue, but we'll see how these work out.They don't last forever, some will inevitably break, but it seems like such a reasonable way to conserve water and not spend a fortune.

 Unfortunately, I had  put my tomatoes and cucumbers in the ground beforehand and the plants really could have benefited from the ollas being planted closer at the same time. . I planted some as close to the tomatoes as I dared  get. You have to dig fairly deep - and of course, it depends on the size of the pot.  I had already set plastic grow pots near their roots, but it didn't seem like they were getting enough water. I hoped that this would help.

The idea behind the olla watering system is that by filling them with water and letting the ground dry out, the roots of the plants will be drawn to the water and collect moisture by pulling the water from the submerged container. It has to be a porous container so that moisture will be able to escape to the thirsty roots. Some people get all fancy by installing an irrigation system that fill the pots, but I just do it by hand with a headless water wand. You just unscrew the head. I went out and bought a funnel to make the system less wasteful as I still end up spilling some.

By trial and error, I am learning how to use this wonderful watering system! Next year, I will plant my tomatoes around  larger Ollas and use the smaller ones for the other veggies. . Ive been covering the holes with rocks and little chunks of found concrete, but next time I'll paint all the tops white and cover them with saucers to alleviate some of the inevitable evaporation. And everything will get planted around the ollas at the same time.

While I was doing my research, I saw a lot of pictures of things newly planted around the Ollas, but not so  many photos of plants as they grow with this system - or the end results. So I'll try to remedy this by showing how my garden progresses over the summer.
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Lets start with the tomatoes. Mine are all mostly Cherokee tomatoes. Ive also got a  Black Prince and an Egyptian somethingorother that appears to be a paste tomato, I started most of them from seed indoors and they just seem a lot smaller than what they should be. They are all producing fruit, but they are tiny as compared to last year. The soil should be fine and I used the same techniques that I used last year. They might need more sun - maybe they don't get enough hours of it. I think putting in a couple of Ollas and mulching with some rotting hay has helped. We have had some hot days, so all in all, the plants seem a lot happier now. Ive got more flowers, so I am ever hopeful.

The cucs, which I never have any luck with, seem to be pulling out of whatever bad mood they were growing up in. Ive been upping the fertilizer - mostly worm castings - seems like they should be bigger, but they look like they might live. I actually got two medium sized cucumbers out of this one. Maybe its just too much to hope for a healthy cucumber plant in my world of mega cucumber beetles (they spread a virus). I have one growing in a more enclosed space out back, and it looks much healthier - no cucumber beetles. I am convinced that they like the Olla watering system.

 So far, the pole beans that were planted around the Ollas are the healthiest I have ever had. (this is a photo after a long hot day - they always look a bit wiltie after the heat) They look like they are supposed to and I didn't lose a single one. Not a single one. I had saved up a lot of toilet paper rolls and gave them little collars as they poked their little heads up out of the soil. It works like a charm. There are a few that were planted a bit far out of reach of the water, but I save the watering can or the hose for the ones that wouldn't otherwise make it. More Ollas next time!

Eggplants, Zucchini, Kale, and Cilantro are all doing well. Now that they are established, I water about every two - three days and use so  little water as compared to last year. I have not planted any root crops because I just didn't have all that many pots. But Ive got more space since digging up my garlic. It would be fun to see how carrots and radishes grow around these.

The bottom line is: if you have the time and some DIY skills, you can do this as well. They do take up some room and have to be stored somewhere if you dig them out of the ground, but if you plan it out, it looks like you can actually get quite a bit  out of a small amount of space. Stay tuned.

The Flowers Are Rioting

 Literally.
 A riot of Nasturtiums. I took some seeds from a neighbor's outcrop of Nasturtiums a while back. He didnt mind as he hates them and they grow like weeds. But a pretty weed and vine creation is just what I needed. I threw these seeds out into the field and with a couple good rains - voila! They pop up everywhere!

Unless you absolutely cant stand weeding, don't plant them near your garden. But I find these flowers easy to identify by their leaves and to pull out when they stray. The bees adore them and while I cant prove it, they probably keep some bad bugs away.

Unless I can keep them watered, they will die back soon, but the aroma is absolutely intoxicating during the day and evening. I planted some in pots in the back yard for color.

Empty Nest Syndrome

My yard always seems filled with hummingbirds in the Spring. They feed from the huge Salvia bushes in the back and my neighbor upstairs has a feeder for them. They always make nests in places where we have to walk through to get from one place to another - and then they are bothered and they make a new nest elsewhere. But this year, Mama H made her nest right by my back window and made it very clear that she knows who I am and she will tolerate me. I would look out the window and she would be right there in my face, beating her little wings, and reminding me to not pull anything fancy. And she let me walk by without moving her nest this year. So I got to watch a little baby hummingbird be born and grow. I watched it groom itself and flap its wings to get  ready to fly away. And then one day it was gone. It almost broke my heart.

But then a couple days later, when I was out working in the yard, both the mama and baby got right in my face and lit on a branch  next to me and let me hang out for a minute with them. It was the most beautiful thing that Ive experienced in a very long time. And with that moment came a mama sparrow with her baby - and they both lit on a branch next to me as well. I felt like the princess in a Disney movie. I felt like I had been allowed to join a special club.

Last Day Of February

February

Its been a warm winter here in Northern California with just a couple storms that gave us a lot of rain. Still in a horrible drought. Still watering plants with grey-water. Still wondering how I'll keep it all alive during the summer. Still wondering how I'm going to keep the creeps out of my garden. I'll try growing squashes around them and make it harder to get in. I guess that's all I can do unless I want to invest in fencing. Which isn't an option. But on a happy note, the deer and bunnies don't bother me at all.

My peas have done well despite the soakings. Ive been having them in stir-frys every other evening and I gave a few away. And I am always walking out to the patch to graze. I don't let them get very big because I cant stop eating them! They really did get pretty beat up by the storms, but they bounced back. Tall Telephone is taller than me now (I'm almost 6 feet tall) and starting to produce. The Golden Sweet Snow Peas are doing great.  The Cascadia and other peas that I saved from last year (I didn't keep good records and don't know what exactly I planted) are doing well.  I didn't do anything special to the soil this time around. Just stuck em in the ground and they grew. But I did rotate them to a different part of the garden and next time I wont crowd them as much. They have brown spots on the bottom leaves from overcrowding. Most of these seeds were left overs from the season before and all germinated just fine.

I planted a lot more garlic this year and it is going gangbusters. Its taking up a lot of space, so I wont have quite as many different kinds of vegetables this year. But when they are done, I can plant some fall crops. I have to pare this garden journey down despite all the car washings I have seen lately. And I love garlic so much that I don't care. I don't think you can have enough!

The Calendula are still growing and happy. They never died back. Ive got nasturtiums growing everywhere, which makes me happy as I just love them. They look pretty lush in patches along the sidewalk . They are invasive, but I don't have a problem yanking out the ones that go where they are not invited, There are not as many blooms now as they have in Spring, but the leaves are gigantic. I'll probably plant them in baskets out in my back yard this year. The dead tree has not been cut down yet, so I cant really plant anything permanent until it is, but nasturtiums strewn about would be fun now that we get more sun back there.

The weather has been glorious for February, so I am outside a lot and people love to stop and talk about my garden. I love to step outside from my work in the studio and look at the natural spots of color here and there. It heals me from the pressures of modern life.

 I dug up a strip alongside the house and I'll plant flowers - maybe some vining flowers  and more marigolds. In fact, I just ordered passion flower seeds and then didnt realize that they can take a year to germinate. Big sigh. I'll just have to go visit a nursery, I guess. I want some lush, trailing and climbing stuff. I want this place prettified. I did transplant my rootbound rose bushes - and they are THRIVING now that they can spread root, get some sun, and breathe! And for the shady front of my studio, I will be replacing the roses with ferns. This is a Mother Fern. I didnt even know I was getting a mother fern or what that is. I just knew that I wanted a fern and that it was love at first sight with this one. But now I'll have baby ferns to plant in the shady parts of the back yard! Its all coming together.