oi-ya, I made an olla

An olla is an unglazed clay pot that's buried in the soil and filled regularly with water, as a way of irrigation. Since unglazed clay bodies are porous, the water passes through it and, from higher to lower water concentration, moistens the soil. Essentially, the pot acts as a membrane allowing for osmosis. The waterline on the pot on the right-hand side clearly shows its porosity. 

I just discovered this technique yesterday, basically, and figured this would be a great solution for watering the paper+mulch beds (I found that the newspaper layer makes it quite hard for the water watered from above to fully penetrate the soil; instead, it creates little puddles and mould). This is still in the experimental phase to see how effective this system can be, and what seems to be an optimal volume/capacity, depth and spacing of these ollas. That's why, to keep things flexible, I've opted to use a terracotta saucer with an improvised rubber seal as a lid. An alternative would have been to silicone an upside-down pot on this one, to set it deeper in the soil. 

As a bonus, I'll add some little pebbles and water onto the saucer so it can be a water source for bees and other insects.