Water Wisdom

An olla is an unglazed clay pot buried beside your plants and kept full, so water seeps into the soil as the roots need it. How to make one from two terracotta pots, bury it, fill it and use it in every Australian climate zone.

How tomatoes and melons are grown with one soak at planting and almost no watering after it: the soil that makes it possible, the step by step method from Oregon State University's trials, what to expect from the crop, and which Australian climate zones can try it.

Seeds need steady moisture, not a torrent. Fine roses, misting, bottom watering and a few timing tricks keep them in place and stop damping off.

A wicking bed waters itself from a reservoir underneath. How they work, when they beat an ordinary bed, how to build one from a tub or a raised bed, and the problems to design out.