Reddit reviews Gardening with Less Water: Low-Tech, Low-Cost Techniques; Use up to 90% Less Water in Your Garden

Thanks for your interest, everyone!! First, some background information: I live in a desert (zone 8b), and this is for a community garden. Since it's a community garden, we have limits on what we can and can't install. A regular drip system with timer is not an option.

So, I did a ton of research, and read about olla pots for irrigation, and they seemed like a good idea. I also used this book from the library. Preliminary tests over the winter season were promising enough to expand the system.

Each plot in our garden is roughly 4'x8'. We used a total of six six-inch unglazed terra cotta pots for each plot. We glued the pots together in twos to equal three large ollas. The hardest work was digging and pick axing a trench that is deep enough and roughly twice the width of the pots.

From there, we used PVC to connect a five gallon bucket to each of the pots. Since the pots are unglazed, water will seep out from their entire surface area. The distance the water reaches away from the pots depends largely on how broken up the soil is.

Once all of the PVC glue is dry, we will recover the pots, and run water through the system. We have already tested one plot, and it seems like the water is reaching 3"-6" away from the pots, so we'll plant in that area.

The idea is to reduce evaporation and use less water. If it works, I'll post an update later in the season!!

ETA: The cost for each plot was about $15 for materials. We completed three plots on a Saturday morning with four volunteers.