Best 5 Gallon buckets/pots to grow in?

Discussion in 'Growing Marijuana Indoors' started by doniboy, Mar 8, 2013.

  1. What what inexpensive 5 gallon buckets/pots are you all growing in? I've seen one person say that they drill holes into the bottom of one 5 gal bucket (for drainage) and then place that bucket into another 5 gal bucket to catch the runoff. Is this the norm? What's the best most inexpensive way for me to pot 20 plants in 5 gal buckets?
     
  2. Smart pots are my recommendation. However 5 gal nursery pots will be cheaper.
     

  3. How do you go about dealing with drainage with smart pots?
     
  4. Same as you would any other pot. Put a tray or something under it to catch runoff.
     
  5. Pretty much any container will work as long as it holds enough dirt and lets water drain out. If you use a bucket dark colors are better but white will still work.Drill lots of holes in the bottom and on the side of the bottom, 15 or 20 3/8 to 1/2 inch is good. Make sure it doesn't contain any residue from previous use like paint etc. Sit it in a saucer to catch runoff. You don't have to buy expensive pots unless you just want to.:D

    mj:smoking:
     
  6. Glad I came across this. I've been using 3 gal plastic nursery pots, but just bought some 5 gal felt pots for the next grow to try and step it up a bit. I saw someone say on another thread that they had problems with excessive water in the bottom of the felt pots. Anyone have anything to add before I fuck up a crop?
     
  7. I'm using a combination of 2x 5gal. containers and a few 3 gal. containers; some are smart pots (both 3&5gal), some are in nursery pots.

    First, it's kind of impossible to over water your plant on a smart pot. The excess water will drain away immediately.

    But in terms of my personal experience using smart pots, after you harvest a plant on a smart pot and you try to separate the soil from the root, you notice right away that the root ball itself is very even compared to the nursery one. It's a big root ball the size of your pot instead of a slimmed out root ball on the nursery pot that's scattered. But does that mean I got a better yield off of the one using the smart pot? Actually no. They were all about the same height considering they're on 3 gal containers but the plus of it was that my watering schedule was always spot on with the smart pot (Every 3 days /w roots organic soil), where as the nursery pots were always +/- day or 2.

    Smart pots are around double the price of the nursery pots. Amazon sells a 5 pack of 3gal smart pots for $26 and the local nursery sells 3 gal black or white pots for $2.50, so $12.50 total.

    In the future if I ever need to replace my current containers, I'll probably just buy all smart pots. I like the consistent watering schedule and I don't see why not since I'm already using premium nutes+soil+HPS anyways.
     
  8. Good to know, thanks, appreciate the input.. spark em' if ya got em':smoking:
     
  9. #9 doniboy, Mar 9, 2013
    Last edited by a moderator: Mar 9, 2013
    Where are you seeing a pack of 5 for $26? I'm seeing them all going for $8 a piece, and that's just's highway robbery to me. I do not think it's worth spends almost $80 (if I wanted 10) on a $.25 cloth product.

    Edit: never mind I found them. You think the 3 gals worked okay for you? Most of what I've read suggested at least a 5 gal container.
     
  10. It depends on your grow space, most importantly height. My max height is 60" minus the height of the cool tube (Yield master II) so about another 12 inches so, minus about 8 inches away from the glass (so plant doesn't burn) so my max height I can grow it at is 4ft 4" from top to bottom; then minus 1 ft for the height of the soil...

    So at 60" max height, I can grow almost 3 1/2 ft of plant from top soil to the tip of the cola on a 3 gal container -- which is pretty damn good imo for me.
     

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