I’m about to start the flower my blue mystic in a 3 gallon bucket of soil. It will be a truly pain in the ass and compromise the rest of my space bucket set up. Has anyone grown in a 3 gallon bucket?
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@GrowerGoneWild Can you share some of your experiences with 3 gal pots.
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Off the top of my head, the standard nursery pot number shows its size. so Its a #3 nursery pot.
So I dont use buckets because I would have to punch holes in the bottom. But there should be no problem using 3 gallon pots with soil. It would be ok in my opinion to use a smaller “bucket” for a plant like fire og or the white under 600’s. I haven’t grown out blue mystic so I dont know much about that cultivar.
What I dont like about small pots is they require more care and watering than a larger pot, watering will be more frequent and putting more feed to the soil to make it grow to prevent problems
I always find the biggest pot I can for soil. You’re more likely to get rootbound in a smaller pot. And remember pot size limits the size of the plant.
IF you run synthetic feeds its ok to run smaller pots, IF you run a totally organic system I always go as big as possible, I’ve found I have had to add quite a bit of feed in the way of kelp, guano’s to keep the system going correctly, and you need more soil to keep everything happy, and in my opinion you need more soil to support that ecosystem.
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Me i used to do sog in soil before all my aero stuff
I do some very nice crop in 1.320 gallons (5 liter)
The key is to do very small plant … and a maximum in minimum space (sog)
Me i always prefer have smaller plant but a lot than bigger and a few
because less veg =more saving on electricity bill =more crop in a year also
If i remeber well i was doing 7 to 8 days of veg
Anyway good luck and keep us updated
Stay safe grow hard
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Thank you for mentioning grow style.
If I do SOG, I use 1 gallon growbags.
SCROG I go much bigger.
Pot size can be used to manipulate plant size, I went too big with dutch pot recirc using 5 gallon pots and I ran out of room. .
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I use a combo of 3.5 gallon pots and 5 gallon buckets for flowering right now: wouldn’t want to put a lanky sativa into 3.5 gallons or anything, but topped and with a little bit of training, you can most certainly grow out a happy, healthy plant in a 3 gallon bucket.
@Anavrin do you have specific concerns?
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I very seldom use any container larger than 3 gallon. I use a soil-less mix.
I like to move my containers quite a bit, outside to follow the sun, indoors rotating and moving positions relative to light.
Keeping my plants smaller makes them much easier for me to move
Generally, the bigger the container, the bigger the plant. And as @GrowerGoneWild
mentioned above, smaller containers require much more maintenance.
Here is an example of very small containers being used and the difference in size.
The puny containers are only 22 ounces, the larger one is .71 gallon.
These were clones taken from same plant and flowered at the same time.
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… well if we’re posting what you can do in small-ish containers 
This is the Wreckage I flowered this past spring in a 3.5 gallon bucket:
The other two plants I had going were heavily trained in 8 gallon pots, so this girl was kind-of an afterthought to grow in the corner. Yield was entirely satisfactory, but probably could have chunked up the buds a bit more if it were in the brightest part of my tent.
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It took me a long time to figure this out! You can use coir and hydro nutes in tiny pots. But with soil/organic dry nutes I noticed when I upgraded to 600w the plants started getting rootbound in 3 gallon containers which were fine under 250w and 400w lights. The light intensity increased the demand on the root system. Using 5 gallons makes everything easier.
I still use 3.7 gal but leaves yellow & fall off sooner and the plants need to be harvested sooner. But 5 gallon pots make gigantic plants, I can’t fit more than 3 plants into my 4X4 tent and even then it’s cramped.
With smaller pots you have to start flowering when they’re small and also I wait until day 7-10 of flower to transplant into the final pot, this is key to prevent them from getting rootbound. Typically I’ll start flowering in a 1.5 - 2 gallon container and move to 3.7-5 gal around day 7-10.
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Interesting… sounds like we have similar setups, but take a very different approach to flowering. I’ve always transplanted into final container, and then vegged for another couple of weeks before flipping to 12/12. Then again, I’m usually going from 0.5 or 1 gal pots -> 3 or 5 gal buckets, so it’s a lot more space to fill.
Not trying to hijack thread, I promise OP should come back and see how much semi-relevant info we’re giving him!
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It’s my first time growing in a space bucket.
So here you can see that the bottom fan is at soil level.
I have another bottom of a 5 gallon bucket in there to pull the girl out for working on her later.
Right now she’s 5 hours away from 12/12. And I’m totally aware of the “stretch”. When I took these photos there was some roots coming out the bottom of the bucket. I have more than enough holes drilled out for excellent drainage. But it did have me concerned. Here are some more pics of my setup.
Thanks to you all for your feedback.
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Then again, I’m usually going from 0.5 or 1 gal pots → 3 or 5 gal buckets, so it’s a lot more space to fill.
No, it’s very useful to compare notes on this stuff! I’m usually growing from seed, you have to veg them big enough to show sex. That’s why I end up with large plants that go rootbound.
It would be easier to take clones in a small pot & go directly to a large one, that’s what most people do. I have to use a mid-sized pot to get them to show pre-flowers, so they’re already large when they move to the 5-gallon pots.
*edit, wow, I’ve never seen a “space bucket” before! So it’s just some fluoros for lighting - 3 gallon pots are fine! That’s a small space for the plants, even 3 gallon may cause it to overgrow the bucket.
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Yea that’s the point of the space bucket, to grow small. I really hate the idea of cutting away the bottom of the bucket to sit it in another bucket of soil… But when my lights come on I’ll show you guy how much roots are coming out the bottom of the bucket. I have to water her today. I have Dyna-grow Bloom 3-12-6. I used it for my Last small grow box grow about 2 years ago. Think it’s still good to use. If so when do you think I should use it?
OK, I get it now - you’re seeing roots coming out the drainage holes and thinking you need to transplant.
But this is normal, it’s doesn’t mean the plant is root-bound. The roots reach the bottom very quickly, it will take them longer to completely fill out the space in the container. I would say 3 gallon pot is too large for the canopy area, which is small, I would leave it alone and see what happens. There should be enough rootspace for plenty of growth.
When it’s truly rootbound, the top surface of the soil becomes compacted and hard, it doesn’t look that way in the pics, you should be OK with that container.
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You are correct about soil-less mixes, coco and rockwool can grow larger plants in the same size container vs. soil
I believe the problem with soil is lack of oxygen in a smaller container with soil and compaction limits growth. Soil less mixes can support more rootmass, possibly due to their ability to retain proper air in the media better than soil.
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I really enjoyed all this info you all just threw out there, well done!
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Soil less mixes can support more rootmass, possibly due to their ability to retain proper air in the media better than soil.
this is why we all use so much perlite - I tried to lower it recently, from 30% perlite/vermiculite to 20% (peat-based mix). In veg there was no difference. But late in flower the plants just die off without adequate perlite, I agree it’s compaction and the lack of oyxgen. Porosity is everything with cannabis.
Hemp is great for soil remediation in part because its roots reach up to 6 feet deep into the ground. It can be used to break up hard clay soils on farms. My containers are only 1 foot deep. So right off the bat you know cannabis is under stress just trying to grow in a finite-room container.
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Good point about using pearlite in soil mixes for porosity, to make sure you have proper air ratio’s. The other practical way to expose roots to more oxygen is airpots or smartpots.
Straying off topic a bit… But still interesting info:
I talked to a soil formulator about the tiny sticks in the soil, They explained that this was a good thing, that the sticks stack in the soil so it acts like a lattice,helping with oxygen.
Could be legit it could be marketing BS, Typical garden soil concept focuses on pore size of the particles in an aggregate, Large particles, more holes for porosity,
Small holes, less porosity,
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Yeah, could be a quick justification for sub-par compost… but that said, I try to keep small sticks in my compost tumbler to prevent compaction and keep things aerated 
I certainly don’t mind seeing small bits of composted wood in my soil, so long as it’s well broken down – I’ve had sticks in commercial soil where you could peel off the bark and see fresh wood… I’m not an expert on compost or mulch by any means, but my understanding is that uncomposted wood will rapidly consume nitrogen in your soil, no?
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