Climate change is not new. I have heard that archaeologists have found evidence of ancient jungles in today’s Sahara Desert. Timbuktu certainly had to have a better climate to exist as a cultural center of the world.

Our own temperate climate seems to be changing from year to year and modern day gardeners are not (for the most part) a nomadic society that can pack up and head for a better place.

Today’s gardener needs to be smart when it comes to watering the garden, especially when there is a water meter involved. Using a garden hose waters not only desirable plants but also weeds that can rob nutrients from those plants.

Evaporation from the soil itself wastes water, and moisture on leaves may create an environment conducive to various fungi and molds.

Ancient people used oyas (also spelled “olla,” but it is pronounced oy’-yah). The word means “clay pot” in Spanish. It is an unglazed vase-shaped vessel and has a lid to help prevent evaporation into the air.

I recommend that it should hold at least a half-gallon of water. These can be purchased on the internet and in parts of the Southeast and Southwest. They are expensive, heavy to ship and breakable.

A search on the internet will yield instructions for making oyas using an unglazed, plugged flowerpot.

Once I had the oya in hand, I dug a hole in the garden big enough to accommodate it and refilled the hole around it to about an inch or two from the top. I filled it with water and put the lid on top and planted some peppers around it.

Advantages of using an oya:

• One cannot overwater the garden. Since the pot is unglazed, water will seep through the walls of the vessel into the dry soil around it. Roots of nearby plants will find their way to the walls of the oya, although top watering will be necessary until that happens.

• If there is an excessively wet spring, water from the soil seeps back into the oya, helping to dry the soil around it. Plants are more evenly watered this way.

• An oya uses much less water than top watering. There is little loss of water due to evaporation. I found that it takes much less time to fill an oya than to water the plants around it.

• I have not tried it, but I understand that liquid fertilizer may be added directly to the water in the oya.

Last year I had one oya. My peppers were the best I’ve ever grown. This year, I have seven oyas. Here we go!

To learn more about this ancient style of watering, go to http://go.osu.edu/ollas .

Martin is an Ohio State University Extension Master Gardener Volunteer in Mahoning County.