kasitomo PlantHouse
For quite some time now, I’ve been fascinated by farming—particularly the idea of becoming fully autonomous and growing my own food.
The big question is: How can we do that efficiently, in an environmentally friendly way, and with respect for the plants we grow and the soil we depend on?
What would it take to run the perfect SolarPunk-style farm—one that sustains life without draining resources?
To be truly efficient, such a farm would need to largely run and regulate itself.
My first idea was something high-tech: a kind of robotic system—similar to this project (insert link)—that uses a variety of sensors to read data from the environment. Visual data from above the plants, pH levels, soil moisture (hydricity?), and more. Equipped with a robotic arm, much like a 3D printer, it could water plants individually, plant new seeds, and maybe even harvest crops.
(Insert footage of Captain Picard’s vineyard—because of course.)
It’s all incredibly fascinating. And I’ll definitely incorporate some tech like this into future projects. The idea of a self-planting, self-harvesting farm is deeply intriguing.
But—I’m also a huge fan of history and traditional technology. There’s something compelling about old methods that have stood the test of time. In a way, science is just fast-forwarded history.
Given enough time, someone will test something new. If it works, others repeat it. Over generations, it’s refined and perfected. That’s the scientific method, stretched across centuries.
So why reinvent the wheel? There are literally tens of thousands of years of agricultural history, where people have already honed methods to near perfection.
This is especially true in farming—something we humans have done since the dawn of civilization.
Long story short: maybe I don’t need to build a robot with a 3-axis arm to water my plants every day.
Maybe all I need is to bury a simple clay pot in the ground every few feet.
Olla Irrigation
Olla irrigation —from the Spanish word “olla,” meaning pot— uses unglazed terracotta vessels to water fields efficiently and sustainably.
The idea is simple: you bury a clay pot in the soil near your plants. Water slowly seeps out of the pot’s porous walls, only when the surrounding soil is drier than the inside of the pot, thanks to a natural pressure differential.
This method:
- reduces water,
- waste,
- prevents overwatering,
- discourages weed growth (since the surface stays dry),
- and encourages deep root development by watering from within the soil.
And the best part? You can often fill these pots just once and be good for days—or even weeks—depending on the conditions. (I’ll be testing this myself soon to get some solid data on refill frequency.)
This technique isn’t new. In fact, it’s first documented in ancient Chinese agricultural texts from the Han Dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE).
Other civilizations, such as the Persians and cultures in North Africa, developed similar strategies to increase crop yields in their dry climates.
Independently of these, pre-Columbian Indigenous peoples in Mexico and the American Southwest also used this method—proving it’s a solution that has truly stood the test of time.
I’m planning to test this low-tech solution myself. Honestly, it might outperform many modern high-tech systems simply because of its simplicity and elegance. That said, I could easily see it integrating with advanced systems—where the tech handles planting and harvesting, and the olla takes care of irrigation.