Bury Two Glued Clay Pots to Water a Garden Bed From Below

The Problem

Garden beds dry out fast in hot weather, and watering from the top wastes a lot to evaporation while wetting the leaves more than the roots. Miss a few days and shallow watering leaves the deep roots thirsty. This is a centuries-old fix — a buried unglazed clay vessel, sometimes called an olla — rebuilt from two cheap terracotta pots.

The Technique

1. Take two unglazed terracotta pots of the same size and glue them together rim-to-rim with a waterproof adhesive, forming a closed chamber with a drainage hole at each end.
2. Bury the joined pots in the bed near your plants, leaving the top hole at or just above the soil surface.
3. Fill the chamber with water through the top hole, then cap that hole with a lid, stone, or saucer to block evaporation and keep debris out.
4. Check the level weekly, topping it up as the plants draw it down, and watch how the plants respond.

Because unglazed terracotta is porous, water wicks slowly through the walls into the surrounding soil, drawn out faster when the soil is dry and slower when it's already moist — delivering water right at the root zone with very little lost to the surface.