Olla's... a better way to water your garden in the desert.

I was in search of:
1- A better way to water more efficiently
2- A way to take a vacation for a week and not worry about the garden suffering.
3- Someway to keep the soil with the perfect amount of moisture.
This is one way I found and decided to give it a try, They are called Olla’s.
Walmart sells them starting around $30. I have noticed they are also sold online and they look great. Olla’s has been around for a long long time watering gardens all over the world.
With most of them being in the 30 to 35 dollar range and I need about 6 or 8 of them….outta my price range.
Somewhere online not sure where I saw terracotta pots used for Olla’s….ding!
So off to Wallmart and HomeDepot looking for orange 1 or 1.5 gal pots. and also small pots with the sausers that goes under them.

These will be my $8 Olla’s and will hold about 1.5 gallons of water.

First I drill a hole the size of drip irrigation about 1/4 in with a masonary drill bit in the bottom of the large pot.

The large sauser is adheared to the top of the large pot…. bottom of the sauser facing up.

Small pot is adheared to large pot, bottom to bottom so the holes in the pots line up.

After glue has dried I inserted a drip line with a T connector on the top, that allows me to hook as many up inline as we need.

The water level will be kept at a constant level with a control bucket and a water float.
All thats left to do is bury them up to the top ring on the small pot about 10 to 12 inches in the raised beds outside the green house.
Comments welcomed.
Happy Gardening.
God Bless.
:-)
Update 3-12-2013

They are installed in the new bed and hopefully mother nature will allow for planting soon. This bed is for beans and cucumber.
Come on spring!
:-)

-- JTC