These Mayne Island Potters Are Introducing Ollas to B.C. Gardeners

In true Gulf Islands fashion, Kristine Webber and Kim Korol don’t have set opening hours at Mayne Island Clay Works. “We have a sign on the door that says we’re open whenever we’re here,” says Webber. Also in true island style, they leave some of their ollas sitting outside their shop, and regular customers might help themselves to a few and later email to request an invoice.

An olla (pronounced “oh-yeah”) is a large, unglazed terracotta clay pot. “You bury them in the ground up to about halfway up the neck, and then you fill them with water,” Webber explains. “Because the ceramic is porous, the water slowly seeps out through the walls of the vessel to the surrounding plants. The water disperses about four feet by four feet, so it’s a pretty big area.”

Compared to surface watering, ollas can reduce water usage by around 70 percent. Depending on how hot it is outside, the ollas need to be refilled just two or three times a week, making them especially suitable for community gardens that aren’t tended every day. The slowly seeping water helps the soil maintain a consistent moisture level. Webber says, “You constantly have moisture in the soil, so it’s really great for plants like tomatoes and cucumbers that like even moisture.”

Although ollas have been used for irrigation around the world for thousands of years, many Canadians are still unfamiliar with them. “I think other countries have kept up the technology because they’ve had a need for it with drought and different things,” Korol says. “We’ve always had access to a lot of fresh water, especially in Canada.” When Korol and Webber bring their clay pots to gardening events, they spend much of their time educating gardeners about what ollas are and the advantages they offer.

By minimizing evaporation, ollas reduce the amount of water needed for gardening—always a concern in the Gulf Islands. “Normally you shouldn’t water in the heat of the day because it evaporates and wastes a lot of water,” Webber says. “When you’re using an olla, because you’re watering underground, it doesn’t matter—you could fill them up any time of the day.” She adds, “Anything we can do to help save water and support the water table and the watershed, that’s a good thing.”

Read More: Green Thumb Guide: How to Start a Veggie Garden in B.C.

Another advantage of ollas is that watering less often saves time for gardeners. “Because you’re not watering the surface, you get far fewer weeds growing up, so you save time also in weeding,” Webber says. “Also, you don’t have plastic in your gardens.” Webber ponders if the growing awareness of the dangers of microplastics might encourage more gardeners to switch from plastic irrigation pipes to clay ollas.

Plants thrive when irrigated with ollas. “The plants are smart. They’ll even grow their roots towards the olla,” Webber says. “In the fall, when you take [the olla] out, you’ll actually see it’s almost like there’s a root helmet in the inside of the hole where the plants have grown.”

To prevent breakage during a freeze, each olla needs to be dug up in autumn and safely stored away for a few months. “We recommend—even here in Lotusland—that you take it out in the fall and just put it somewhere dry. It doesn’t have to be in your house. It could just be in a garage or under a porch,” Webber says. “As long as it doesn’t get smashed, it should last a long time, unlike plastic irrigation pipes.”

It was an ollas project that originally led to the formation of Mayne Island Clay Works. “We’ve been around for about four years now,” Webber says. “A landscape architect named Ann Klaveness was looking for some locally made ollas for a garden installation that she was doing, and Kim and I both stepped up and decided we would do the project together.”

Webber and Korol had never worked together before, but they figured out how to build those original ollas by hand. It was a time-consuming, labour-intensive process that they have since abandoned. “We now make them using a more industrial method of slip casting in large plaster moulds,” Webber explains. “The moulds weigh about 150 pounds when they’re full of the liquid clay.”

Despite this faster and easier process, Webber and Korol are still limited in how many ollas they can produce. “We can only do three a day because the moulds can only do one pour in a day,” Korol explains. “The plaster needs time to dry before you can fill it again for it to work.”

In addition to ollas, the pair produce other ceramics. Webber usually makes what she calls functional work—“mugs, plates, bowls, those kinds of things”—but Korol has been encouraging her to experiment. Webber says with a laugh, “She’s always prompting me to make more weird things, so wall hangings and sculptures.”

Korol’s pieces, on the other hand, veer more toward bold and striking than functional. Picture a large, decorative bottle that would sit in the corner of a room, or an eye-catching ceramic side table that would nestle in beside a favourite reading chair. “I like to make very large things. I’m only limited by the size of our kiln,” Korol says. She also makes custom tiles. “I just finished some tile in my own shower. I’m pretty happy with it.”

Webber has lived on Mayne Island for about a decade, after growing up on Vancouver Island and later living in Vancouver, while Korol fled Calgary almost six years ago, escaping the snowy weather. Now the two potters adore their laid-back island lifestyle. “The commute is lovely, from the house to the studio,” says Korol, who does her 6-kilometre daily journey on an e-bike. Webber also enjoys the commute to their gorgeous studio, though she admits to being a fair-weather cyclist. “When I ride my bike, I can go through the farm for most of my journey and then just go on the road for a little bit. It’s just so beautiful.”

But running a business on a small Gulf Island definitely has its challenges. The possibility of a fire in the summertime heat is an annual worry, prompting Webber and Korol to set up their kiln in a shipping container beside their studio. Mayne’s small population—around 1,300 full-time residents—and the prohibitively high cost of mailing large items in Canada mean the two entrepreneurs must load up the car and drive their clay pots to gardening events in Vancouver, Victoria, the Sunshine Coast and elsewhere throughout the province.

“I think we got 35 in my car one time. We’re pretty good at stacking them,” Webber says.

“They’re pretty rugged. They’re not too fragile,” Korol says.

“The circle form is so strong that they’re pretty durable,” Webber adds.

The two business partners hope their efforts in educating people about ollas will entice more gardeners to try using the clay pots. Webber points out that gardeners always seem to be adding just one more bed. “They can’t help it. They’re always adding something,” she says. “Rather than extending their irrigation, that’s a good time to try some ollas.”

Visit Kristine Webber and Kim Korol in their Mayne Island Clay Works studio, right next to the Home Hardware on Mayne Island.