hey blades, for my grow next year, was wondering, would these 5 gallon buckets I find everywhere be sufficient for growing some 4 or 5 foot girls? i get them free, and they dont need thaaat much soil, and no digging holes are all the advantages i think....what do you experienced growers think, for a several-spot guerilla grow in the woods...5 gallon buckets, or holes?
i would say put them in the ground with a good soil MIX....do work personally if i could plant in the ground i would
I dont think 5 gallons would be enough anyways. They could defanatley grow in there, but you might want to consider a 12-15 gallon pot. I just picked up ten 15 gallon pots for $10 at a local nursery. But to answer your question, a good hole in the ground witha good soil mix is ideal, in my opinion.
Hi Beachspliff, Containers are good when your spot is compromised by too many trips (tracks). I used a wheelbarrow to move them to a clean spot in mid August. Plus you don't have to dig. Those would be the 2 main advantage of pots. For watering, I placed 6 plugs (cork) out of 8 holes that wer in bottom of the pots. I watered once a week (very little rain here). So it's a little more watering than in soil. Other disadvantage is pots are more sensible to nute burn than soil. Then, don't let the sun hit the pots direct (the plants yes), because the sun can burn your roots through the pots if the pots aren't big enough. I didn't have that problem though.This year I had one 7 gallon pot with 5 female indicas: they all grew just fine with big juicy buds in the end. No problem. The yield wasn't that great but enough for me (about 10 ounces for 8 females in 2 pots). So 7-8 gallon pots would be good for 1 or 2 plants per pot. 15 or 25 gallons is what's recommended for max yield, but then it's hard (impossible) to move and you lose the main advantage of pots imo. This year I'm doing 8 females but in soil with each female her own hole. I'll be doing some bagseeds in wooden boxes set up on wet soil, so the plants can drink on their own. Just make sure you're spot is stealthy and don't make tracks of course. Once the vegetation is wrecked, you can't move them so they can be easily ripped in this case.
My first grow was in 5 gallon Homer Buckets that I drilled a half doz. or so holes in for drainage. With the bucket the plant grew taller than a 8' privacy fence so I had to put the bucket down a hole and I got a little over a half pound of dried and trimmed bud off that one plant. Advantages: Easy to move Disadvantages: Less stealthy Needs more watering Some limits to the size of the plants. To me in my situation the advantage outweighed the negatives.
With 5 gallon buckets I was getting about 10 ounces a plant. Now I use 50 litre pots I average about 18 ounces a plant.
I got mixed up in the numbers. The pots were 40-45l (10-11 gallons), not 28 (7 gallons)!. 7 gallons would be too small for 5 plants, hell even for 1. And best is 1 per pot.
For the last 2-3 months the ones in the ground will usually grow much larger than those in the pots. Up till then they grow about the same. Portability is a benefit when starting in pots like I do. I move them around to see which spot they like best and which is stealthiest...then I sink them into mother earth and let nature do its thing. I guess the ones I use are about 3-4 gallon, and I cut the pots down opposing sides and split them open so I don't fuck up the root ball when I transplant.
not really...U.S. gallons are whimpy...it's a wonder that folks can measure anything. 1 gal(US Liq) = 3.78541 L 1 gal(US Dry) = 4.40488 L And comparing Imperial gallons... 1 gal(UK) = 4.54609 L (they use the same measure for liquid and dry) http://www.metric-conversions.org/cgi-bin/util/convert.cgi
I always went with: 1 wimpy US gallon = 3.78 litres 1 robust UK gallon = 4.55 litres Now oldskool tells us there is yet another type of US gallon - as if we needed further complication!! In future I will stick to litres I think.
Nothing agaisnt the English or the American system but I think I'll stick with the liters I've seen my whole life. I didn't know US gallons were measured dry or liquid. I'm not even getting into the British system (nothing against the British ). OldPork, your pots were super small, that's good news for me. Hasta luego.
Gotta remember Corto, that they stay in those pots only till I can get them in the ground, around July 1. The plant you see in that pot is ready for transplanting to mother earth. I would choose a much larger container if they were to stay in them till harvest.
Oh yeah OldPork, I meant until you put them in the soil. But I didn't know they could stay in 3 gallon pots for 2 months. That's real practical until they go in the earth.
Thats exactly what I got @ 12 oz from a 5 gal that I transplanted to a 7 gal in Aug. Buckets are cool,they fill the need if you cant grow in direct soil. But I dont want to do it again in 09. I just want to start them in buckets,then transplant when conditions are perfect. One usefull thing about buckets, is that they are mobile. I didnt plan on this,but I moved them twice....
I grew to the end in buckets this year and think I will transplant to the earth next year like Old Pork says. Hey Pork, Do you break up the root ball when you transplant into the earth? I ask because I used to go through three sizes of container, but noticed that some of the plants kept a root ball the size of the original container.