Your plants are happiest when they get just the right amount of water. But even for the most experienced gardeners, that’s easier said than done. Increasingly common drought conditions and wasteful traditional watering methods mean that it’s all too easy to under or over-water your garden. In addition, many factors complicate how much water your plants need, from the weather and plant type to even what soil you have.

But with the new drought-friendly olla automatic watering system from Thirsty Earth, you can ensure your plants get the perfect amount of water every time they need it. Your plants decide how much water they need by wrapping their roots around our ollas and drawing the correct amount. It's a complete game changer and removes the complication of watering your plants. No more root rot from overwatering your plants or plant death from forgetting a couple of days. These ollas for gardening combine ancient terracotta olla pot technology with innovative new hardware into an olla watering system that consumes 61% less water than drip lines – and 80% less than hand watering.

For centuries, gardeners and farmers have used terracotta pots (known as ‘ollas’ for gardening) to irrigate their crops. The ollas are buried in the earth up to their necks, collecting rainwater that seeps through the porous terracotta into the soil.

Thirsty Earth’s self-watering kit harnesses olla technology into an automatic garden watering system. Our kit is a set-and-forget system that ensures your plants get the water they need. You can go on an extended vacation, and you won't need to ask a friend to water your plants while you are gone. The system connects your existing watering hardware – a hose, drip line, sprinkler head, or rain barrel – to multiple olla Cotta Cups around your garden. The cups are automatically filled, and the water transfers from the cups to the soil whenever your plants call for it. As a result, you get to let your plants decide how much water they need instead of deciding for them. Overwatering and underwatering plants is a common struggle among gardeners. Generally speaking, it is tough to determine how much water your plants need using a sprinkler system or manually watering them.

With the Thirsty Earth watering system, there’s no risk of over-watering your garden: water only seeps out when the soil is dry and needs water. By having a system that delivers the water directly to the roots, you’re maximizing the benefit to your plants, which means a healthier garden and more bountiful crops.

Traditional drip lines and sprinklers can be highly wasteful ways to water your garden. In a 600-square-foot garden, an average sprinkler system uses up to 47000 gallons per long season, while our olla system uses 800 on average. On hot or windy days, water can evaporate or be blown away from the soil’s surface before it ever reaches the roots of your plants. 30-50 percent of all water used through a sprinkler system is evaporated, while our system loses nearly 0 percent of its water to evaporation. And, of course, if you’re hand-watering your garden, you can’t take a day off – your plants depend on you remembering to regularly water them. It's also impossible to give your plants the correct amount of water they need with hand watering techniques because almost all of the water is pulled past the roots by gravity. As a result, nearly all of the water given to plants by hand watering is wasted.

With Thirsty Earth’s automatic olla drip line system, you can use ollas for gardening and keep your garden happy while drastically reducing your water consumption. Having ollas for gardening is the easiest way to use as little water as possible. We’ve tested the system extensively against drip emitters in an identical formation. We have consistently recorded a 61% reduction in water usage while maintaining better plant health with our Cotta Cup technology.

With the Thirsty Earth olla watering system, your plants get the water they need when they need it – with significant savings on your water bill.

Most automatic watering kits come with extensive installation instructions, but it couldn’t be simpler to install your Thirsty Earth Cotta Cups and get started.

Olla Cotta Cups emit approximately 1.5- to 2-foot water plumes in ideal loamy soils (slightly less in clay or sandy soils). All you need to do is space out your cups, plant them just below the surface of the ground, so the lid is still visible, and connect them to the tubing provided. This tubing hooks up to your chosen water source: hose, rain barrel, drip line, or sprinkler head.

The Thirsty Earth olla drip system will fill your Cotta Cups as needed, ensuring a consistently well-watered garden with healthy, happy plants. Improve your garden and increase your harvests while reducing water consumption by 60-80%.

Discover more about the Thirsty Earth olla self-watering system here, or give us a call with any questions you have about our olla cotta cups. (707) 536-3391