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MintBox

Initiatives · 2022–present

Auto-Watering Planter

A waist-height planting bed that holds two months of water.

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The finished Auto-Watering Planter, a birch planting bed on legs, filled with soil.
Footprint
3 ft x 2.5 ft
Water capacity
About two months
Irrigation
Three perforated sub-irrigation pipes
Material
Weather-proofed birch

How it started

We built the first planter with members of the Hudson Guild Fulton Senior Center. They told us something we had not designed for: they had gardened for years and stopped, not because they lost interest, but because the beds were too low to reach comfortably and needed watering every single day.

So the bed sits at waist height and holds roughly two months of water. It went through more than a year of prototyping with residents and program directors before we delivered the first one in June 2023.

How it works

Three semi-corrugated pipes run under the soil and hold the water. A fill pipe in one corner is the only part anyone touches — you pour water in there until the pipes are full.

As the soil above dries out, water seeps through perforations along the length of the pipes and the roots draw it up. Nothing is pumped and nothing is powered. When the pipes run empty, you refill them, which works out to about once every two months.

Diagram

Inside the planter

A cutaway of the sub-irrigation system. Pick a part to see what it does.

Cross-section of the MintBox Auto-Watering PlanterA cutaway view of a waist-height birch planting bed, three feet by two and a half. Soil fills the upper two thirds. Three perforated pipes run along the bottom of the bed and hold about two months of water. A fill pipe in the near corner runs down into them from above the soil. As the soil dries, water seeps out through the perforations and plant roots draw it upward.3 ft1234

Pick a part of the planter to see what it does.

Photographs

Gallery

  • The three perforated sub-irrigation pipes laid in the planter bed before soil went in.
  • The CAD model of the planter in Fusion 360, showing the frame and pipe layout.
  • The birch frame under construction in the school maker workshop.
  • A corner joint of the planter frame being assembled.
  • Water being poured into the corner fill pipe during the first fill at Hudson Guild.
  • Radish seedlings coming up in the planter a few weeks after planting.

Impact

What we have done so far

Self-watering planters built
3
Auto-Watering Planters designed and built to order. One is installed and in use at the Hudson Guild Fulton Senior Center; the remaining two were built as prototypes during development.

Programs delivered here

Field log

Build log

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