Strawberry Obelisk - Design Feedback

I made a design for a vertical structure to grow strawberries. It's an obelisk, so I shall name it... the Strawbelisk! Anyway, I wanted to run the design past you and get feedback. Particularly around watering.

Here's the gist of the design:


All sides taper inward at 13 degrees. There are 4 main sides and between them are triangle shaped "filler" sides (shown in blue above). The colors in the image are just to illustrate the different sides. In reality it'll all be made of white oak, sealed with tung oil. So brown.
I'll be able to fit a lot of strawberries in this thing. It's gonna be awesome.

But a few questions present themselves. One thing I'm wondering about is watering. Assuming I fill the whole thing with soil, if I water from the top in that 6"x6" opening... will it adequately spread throughout the soil and get to the strawberries on the outside? Particularly around the bottom area, which is furthest from the opening and most spread out away from the center.

I've never watered a body of soil in this shape before, so I don't know. Have any of you?

I'd love it if that was the case, because it would make things easy. But if not, there is another idea I had. A large olla.


Here, the bottom part could passively draw water from a reservoir in the terra cotta olla. I think this is a cool idea, because it also helps the overall structure not dry out as easily. More stable with hydration. But it's expensive to do this. So I'd prefer to not do it if I don't have to.

What do you think?

Good morning Peter,

Nice design. I think you need the olla or something like it. As an alternative, you could water into some of the holes in the side. Spiraling a drip irrigation hose inside the strawbelisk will certainly help. I think, the amount of soil in the strawbelisk, as well as the amount of plants, need a lot of water. It requires a lot of patience watering that all into the top of the strawbelisk, especially when the top is dry.

A cheap alternative for an olla, could perhaps be a bunch of sticks in the ground, sticking up almost to the top of the strawbelisk, wicking water from the ground (assuming there is water in the ground). I want to try this wicking myself this season, but I have no actual experience yet. The height of the structure might be an issue for wicking, so you still need to water from the top.

Good luck! Let us know what you did, and how well it worked. I would love to see a picture when it is ready.

I feel the water effect would be the same as if you were watering a 4 foot pot except the water would dry out faster due to the holes on the side.

I like this idea:

Nynke said, " Spiraling a drip irrigation hose inside