quick outdoor bucket question

I have my girl 1 week into flowering in a 5 gal bucket. would it be helpful, harmful or nothing, if i were to fill up another 5gal a bit more than half way and sit the older bucket inside it. would the roots take into the other bucket also making a 7-8gallon bucket without an actual transfer? the bucket shes in now has multiple drainage holes so if the roots were to travel through they wouldnt have a problem. what do you think??

I would be worried about the bucket blowing down in the wind, or an animal knocking it over. What I do is dig a hole about three feet deep, fill halfway with some good soil, cut out a portion or all of the bottom of bucket, and set down in said hole. Less chance of the bucket blowing down and the plant getting damaged. Hope this helps, check out my pics on grow journal, Upstate NY Outdoor, all in five gallon buckets, all bagseed, lool NICE!!

dunkin73 said:

I would be worried about the bucket blowing down in the wind, or an animal knocking it over. What I do is dig a hole about three feet deep, fill halfway with some good soil, cut out a portion or all of the bottom of bucket, and set down in said hole. Less chance of the bucket blowing down and the plant getting damaged. Hope this helps, check out my pics on grow journal, Upstate NY Outdoor, all in five gallon buckets, all bagseed, lool NICE!!

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i would prob do the same but its on my balcony and might be hard to dig through that... but other than the wind or animal issue you dont see a problem with the roots growing through the drainage holes and expanding into the new soil in the bottom bucket?

meh... I did it any way, I dont see anything bad happening. I didnt "transplant" so should be about much shock as pickin up the bucket to feel for water weight. if it works awesome i just gave her a few more gallons to stretch out in and if not oh well she will stay in her original bucket and like it. here is how she looks in her new 8 gallon buckets.

i would definatly make bigger holes of even cutting the bottom off and the put it inside the other bucket..to insure the root tansfer..i have 10 in 5gallon buckets and they are in 5week of budding and not a single root is coming out the bottom.

xxxcmackk said:

i would definatly make bigger holes of even cutting the bottom off and the put it inside the other bucket..to insure the root tansfer..i have 10 in 5gallon buckets and they are in 5week of budding and not a single root is coming out the bottom.

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i did... the outside bucket has about 15 half inch holes just around the bottom side and a good 5 half inch and 5 1inch throughout the bottom. the inside bucket has 3 lairs starting from the bottom to about the half way point, of .5 inch holes all around like the outside bucket. the bottom of the inside bucket has so many 1 inch holes, i didnt even count. ill give it a shot and we will see at the end of the season, maybe i should have just used a larger bucket in the first place... I just adjusted her a bit and added some more soil between the 2 buckets you can see the difference

if your worried bout blown over strap em to the wall with plumbers straping

its heavy as fuck. if i kicked it, it would just slide across the tile. its not gonna tip

I think your plants should be good to go now. The extra soil volume should really expand the root mass and keep your watering frequency down. When it dries out a bit, I would dip the bottom bucket in water to get it nice and wet, then pull it out and water the top bucket fairly sparingly. This should help encourage your roots to expand into the new material.

freddiemoney said:

I think your plants should be good to go now. The extra soil volume should really expand the root mass and keep your watering frequency down. When it dries out a bit, I would dip the bottom bucket in water to get it nice and wet, then pull it out and water the top bucket fairly sparingly. This should help encourage your roots to expand into the new material.

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hell yeah man thats what i was goin for, i even have about a half inch lip from the size difference and amount of soil between the buckets where i can just water the bottom half if i wanted to. the next watering is in 2 days. i think im gonna flush everything and then pay attention to the level in the bottom bucket and watch for leaf drooping for the next week, if they dont droop ill know the roots went down to find water in the bottom half. and ill add some nutes again after that.

Sounds good! It usually doesn't take long for those bottom roots to expand downward and start to fill the bottom of the second bucket. Even if you don't do a full flush to clean it right out, feeding straight water/low dose food through the top bucket and a normal dose to the bottom bucket should encourage them to dig deep.