Questions about watering with containers

Ok, so right now I am using gallon jugs to water my plants. I have a hose that will reach out there, but keeping the nutes near by would be a hassle.... So my question has to do with tecnique..... in the past, growing indoors, I have found that watering with jugs tends to send the water too fast and "big" into the soil, and over time this can compact the soil, not to mention shock the plants. To kind of try to fix this I have drilled small holes in the lids and it kind of comes out like a plant sprayer when I squeeze the jug..... Soon however I will need to mix my nutes in 5 gallon buckets, so.... I am wondering what the prefered method to get the water/nutes into the potted plants with as little stress / work / soil compacting as possible. A resavoir and a pump arent affordable for me right now.... neither is building a shed and table for the nute mixing out there.... and, I use organic nutes that can't really be premixed and stored.... so, what do u do?

i use a 55 gallon barrel, mix my nutes n water then use a pump to pump the water out to my garden and water each one individually, 1 gal per plant everyother day. After the gallon of nutes per plant i plug my hose back into the spiket and water them for about an hour wih the drip system..

In ur case since you cant aford new methods it sounds like ur stuck doin what ur doing...

Next year im gonna put the 55 gal barrel out by the garden and hang it from a tree or build a mound to raise it above the garden level by about 6-8 feet. Then ill just use gravity to feed the water to my drip system..im lookin for more of a set it and forget it method, watering for 1-2 hours every other day gets boring quick, but it does give you quality time with ur babys...