Bucket Drainage

T

TJames

Active Member
Hello all. Spent many hours reading about SuperSoil. No questions on that. My question is about the drain holes in the 7 gallon pails. Is there a favored size hole or number of holes? I thought about laying a piece of landscape fabric in the bottom to keep bugs from accessing. In Sub's videos I don't see any holes at all, though they must be there...

I'm ordering up 7 gallon pails today and getting ready to prep them. Thanks!
 
kushking42

kushking42

Well-Known Member
they are standard nursery pots with a saucer for drainage. typically hydro stores carry the national garden wholesale brand. any pot will work, larger the pot, the larger the drainage. no need for the landscape fabric.
 
T

TJames

Active Member
Thanks. I was going to order 7 gallon pails from US Plastics and drill holes. Plop them each on a tray. 3 pails will just fit the width of grow space I have.
 
kushking42

kushking42

Well-Known Member
yeah ive taken 5 gal water buckets and cut em b4. somewhere around 3/4 wide 1 " tall for the holes. if you only have enough room for three buckets be ware of space limitations. the plant will be wider than the pot.
 
T

TJames

Active Member
The 5 gal and 7 gal are the same diameter so they would fit my space. Looking at the National Garden Wholesale pots now.
 
kushking42

kushking42

Well-Known Member
i was referring to home depot orange 5 gal water as a reference to cutting your own holes, which is more volume than 7 gal of soil btw. anyways... i was just saying, hopefully your space is big enough so that the pots dont touch, you need to account for more space than the diameter of the pot. beacuse the plants over grow their containers considerably.
 
T

TJames

Active Member
Understood. I have a scrog to accomodate. Thanks again.

EDIT: I see your point now. A 7 gallon nursery pot is smaller (volume) than a 7 gallon Home Depot pail... a 5 (liquid) gallon pail is maybe 20% larger than a 5 gallon (soil) pot. Seems that a standard Home Depot 5 gallon pail would still be too small for the SuperSoil plan.
 
J

jtrbushes

Active Member
It depends on the manufacturer, really. I bought pots from a Sunlight Supply retailer and the 7's hold like 6.5 gallons of soil measured with a liquid gallon tea jug and I just finished transplants tonight into the bigger 10's and they took about 9/9.5 of the same gallon jug's worth of soil. This is leaving about 1" of space below the lip of the container in anticipation of a possible future top-dress in mid bloom. So really, these containers ought to hold a true 7 and 10 liquid gallons worth of soil if filled to the lip.

I'm pretty sure these are them, Premium Nursery Pots: http://www.sunlightsupply.com/p-12059-premium-nursery-pots.aspx
 
ClamDigger

ClamDigger

Active Member
i use a 1/2" drill and drill the shit outta the lower half of my pots then i switch to a 1/4" and drill between the larger holes, drainage and air circulation throughout your roots is important.
if you are PAYING for pots i would buy Smart Pots... same cost, many times better, and WAY easier to ship as they are fabric and fold!
 
stonedmetalhead1

stonedmetalhead1

Well-Known Member
TJames said:
Understood. I have a scrog to accomodate. Thanks again.

EDIT: I see your point now. A 7 gallon nursery pot is smaller (volume) than a 7 gallon Home Depot pail... a 5 (liquid) gallon pail is maybe 20% larger than a 5 gallon (soil) pot. Seems that a standard Home Depot 5 gallon pail would still be too small for the SuperSoil plan.
Click to expand...
If you're indoor 5 gal. buckets are fine. I've vegged for 3 months in five gal. buckets of SS and did greats all the way through flower.
 
T

TJames

Active Member
ClamDigger said:
i use a 1/2" drill and drill the shit outta the lower half of my pots then i switch to a 1/4" and drill between the larger holes, drainage and air circulation throughout your roots is important.
if you are PAYING for pots i would buy Smart Pots... same cost, many times better, and WAY easier to ship as they are fabric and fold!
Click to expand...
I would be buying buckets. I have no experience with the smart pots, but thought the plastic pails might be easier to work with. Certainly smart pots are easier to start with, as the pail drilling and lining with fabric is a pain in the ass.

What sort of trays do the smart pots sit in? Sems that you would not want the bottom of the smart pot to sit in the tray. The drilled out pails sit up 2" above any tay to kep airflow at the bottom and avoid possible anaerobic onditions.
 
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