Root, for some reason it won't let me see details on that toilet tank sink. Could you see them? I tried 2 browsers. It's a great idea!

The olla pots sounds intriguing, but how far out would they provide water? You'd end up using a lot of underground space just to put them in. I guess it'd be nice if you had a couple of particluarly expensive and thirsty plants you didn't want to have to baby sit.

No, I couldn't see the detail page either, but it looks like the one from the Passive Cooling thread, which I'll link below. It's near the bottom of the thread and was about the Japanese Home Appliances.

Not sure about the olla pots, but they make sense to me. One of our local news channels did a show where they used a clay pot inside a bigger pot. They plugged the bottom hole with a cork and filled around it with soil, put the plants in around it and then filled the center pot with water. I think they covered the water pot with a saucer to keep bugs out and slow evaporation. I thought that was a neat idea for larger pots.

I just went back and looked at the olla pot, you can see the detail page on the pumpkin shaped one. They have them in diffferent sizes ranging from 1/2 gal to 1-1/2 gal. There are some links on that page to pdfs that give more info on the history of them and how to use them. The first link has a picture. It was gorgeous the way they used them!! It seems to me they would be useful for maybe an area that was out of the way of your regular watering or maybe near a plant that needed consistant moisture. It does warn to not use them near woodie rooted shrubs as they might break the pot. I think they might work great in between a couple tomato plants to keep them evenly moist. I'm thinking a regular unglazed clay pot would work as well, just cover it with one of the clay saucers with the glazed inside/bottom. From time to time I run across some really tall slender clay pots that might work well for that.

I think we tend to forget or overlook that we haven't always had all the modern conveiniances we have today and people have been growing their own food since way back. So there have to be some methods ancient cultures used that would be helpful today.

Here is a link that might be useful: Passive Cooling

Here's another using your washing machine water to fill the toilet tank....... Didn't see a price tag but I bet it'll cost an arm, leg, firstborn and then some!!

Here is a link that might be useful: washup

Did you see the under the sink one on the peddler's page? Sounds similar. It wasn't cheap either. I recall that japanese page. I thought the price on peddler's was very reasonable for the toilet sink.

I've rooted stuff using the 2 clay pot method before, and in fact that's the use i heard it for first. Never really thought about using the method for planters. Only thing is the middle pot seems to leak too slow or too fast. When you really plug it it's so slow that algae will grow. I think the only way the ollas would be worth it would be if you were a potter yourself and could throw them. Otherwise they cost too much, i think.

I wonder if the clay in the Olla pots are a bit more porous than our other clay pots? That could make a difference in how they seep. I have one clay pot that is really thick (almost an inch) with no hole in the bottom. I might experiment with that. You can tell it's a much more porous clay. I don't remember where I got it from. In one of the pdfs on that site it mentions that you'll find the roots of nearby plants attached to the pot, the clay just acts like a wick.

While researching ollas, I found a reference to making your own out of regular terracotta pots. You put two terracotta pots together mouth to mouth and seal the edges with something like epoxy glue. Cover the hole on one of the pots and leave the hole on the other pot open and there you have it, an "olla" of sorts. I am not sure about the sealant, as I would not want to introduce harmful chemicals to the soil.