Yes, you love to garden. Yes, you’re lazy as a sloth. Yes, automated sprinklers will be awesome for someone like you. However, you also happen to hate being wasteful and watering like that tends to use up too much unnecessary water. So, yes, the Oya is going to be a much better fit.
Made by GrowOya, it’s an old-school terracotta vessel that you bury in the garden, fill up with water, and leave to water the plants from beneath the soil all on its own. Taking a week or so before requiring a refill, it puts a good chunk of gardening work on automatic, all while using up less water than other alternatives.
The Oya is a bottle-shaped terracotta vessel, with a porous surface that leaks out small amounts of water day-in and day-out. Designed to be buried in the center of a small garden plot, it releases the water to a diameter of within a few feet, where plant roots within the surrounding area can reach for it to gather their sustenance. It comes in three sizes, with the smallest one releasing water within two feet and the largest one spreading it across four. Obviously, one of these won’t be enough for a large garden, but a few strategically-placed vessels should be enough to cover plots of any size.
According to GrowOya, the vessel’s style of releasing moisture from beneath the soil allows it to save up to 70 percent of water, compared to surface watering. It also discourages weed growth, minimizing the need to pull out the garden tools to remove those pesky wild plants from your garden.
Available now, the Oya is priced at $21.50 for the smallest one, $28 for the medium, and $30.50 for the large.