There are occasions, such as when planting into pots or other planting spaces with restricted areas where the usual size ollas just won’t work. In this case I wanted to plant into ‘self watering’ hanging pots but the alleged reservoirs built into the pots were tiny. So I decided to add some small ollas with a base measuring 75mm, a top of 120mm and holding about 1350mls when full, to improve the water holding capacity of the pots. Also, near the mint in the herb spiral I used an even smaller olla composed of two pots that were 50mm across the base, 80mm across the top with the completed olla holding 500mls when full.
My concern has been that the hole on the top (formally the bottom of one of the pots) was only about 8mm for the herb spiral olla or 11mm for the hanging pot ollas and getting the water in through a hole that size can be slow. I do have a small funnel which exactly fits the filler holes but allowing air to get out as the water gets in is what takes the time. I decided that one possible fix was to drill a small hole beside the main filler hole that would allow the air to escape as the water flowed in. I was unsure how to do it without completely wrecking the olla, but figured a small tungsten carbide tipped concrete drill might be worth a go.
After searching around I found a 3mm one which looked like it might work, I gave it a go on a piece of terracotta pot, and it worked perfectly. I lined it up on the top of the herb spiral olla and, again, it worked perfectly. The hanging pot ollas were already installed so I had to take down each pot and then drill each of the holes individually.
With all the ollas installed/reinstalled I tried filling them using my funnel and the water went straight in, only taking a couple of seconds to fill each olla until it came rushing out the breather hole. The experiment was a success!
It works!!!!
