Partners · Manhattan, Chelsea
We built our first Auto-Watering Planter with members of the Fulton Senior Center, who maintain it themselves.
Since 2021 · Active · Program & Community Engagement Coordinator
Work with Hudson Guild began in 2021. We prototyped with residents and program directors at the Fulton Senior Center for more than a year before delivering the first Auto-Watering Planter in early June 2023.
Residents maintain the planter themselves. They have grown bell peppers and radishes in it. The feedback we hear most is about the routine of tending it rather than the produce — and several members have since asked whether they could have a planter of their own at home.
The partnership's second chapter is box distribution: an outdoor courtyard event where members and residents opened their boxes together at the tables — photographs below. (The team is confirming the date for the record.)
Photographs
Field log
May 2026
Back at Hudson Guild — this time with growing boxes. Members and residents opened their kits together at the courtyard tables, picking their herbs and starting them on the spot. Shared by the team in May 2026; the exact event date is being confirmed for the record.
August 2023
A few weeks after planting, the radishes were up and close to harvest, on a bed nobody had to water daily.
July 2023
We met with members to see how the planter was holding up, replanted radishes, and talked about the sub-irrigation systems we planned to build for other community centers.
July 2023
Filling the sub-irrigation system with water through the corner access pipe, then planting it out for the first time.
June 2023
We delivered the planter to the Hudson Guild Fulton Senior Center and set it up in the common room with the residents who had been prototyping it with us.
