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Buckets or grow bags?

Hello all,
Been a while. I was debating to either get more 5 gallon lowes buckets or buy some grow bags. Question is been seeing that the 5 gallon grow bags are not as big as the 5 gallon buckets you get from lowes. My other question is would it be even better to just use nursery pots? Thanks!
 
People seem to like grow bags, I was gonna try to sew some of my own this year. There are guys growing stuff in the Walmart reusable grocery sacs on YouTube. I think they might dry out faster than pots, but I'm not even sure of that
 
I have tried both and always went back to using 5 gallon buckets....grow bags are great for root development and the do air prune themselves....but in real hot weather you will be watering steady.
 
7 gallon grow bags and 2" deep saucers that are 16" across the bottom are mainly what im using this year. If you want to try a cheap route get some blue Walmart bags and the cheap white plastic wash tubs from Dollar Tree. You will only have $1.50 in each total. I used those last year and it worked just fine.
 
Simple/cheap enough to try it and see if you like it.
 
Sizzle Lips said:
I have tried both and always went back to using 5 gallon buckets....grow bags are great for root development and the do air prune themselves....but in real hot weather you will be watering steady.
 

Ok. Yeah it gets hot and humid here. I think I'll stick to buckets. My other question is, is it fine to use nursery pots or don't bother?
 
I haven't tried grow bags yet, but I would go with 5 gallon nursery pots over Lowes 5 gallon buckets (unless I was building a DIY self-watering system).
 
The nursery pots are broader and flatter.  The 5 gallon buckets are kind-of deep.  Plant roots will prefer to spread out in the shallow portion, and may not fully utilize the deep portion of a 5 gallon bucket.
 
 
I got used 15 gallon pots from the nursery last year, they were 5 bucks a piece though, heard the farm store had feed buckets for 3 bucks, thought about getting some of those. I think fabric pots will look better, but I'm not too worried about it
 
DontPanic said:
I haven't tried grow bags yet, but I would go with 5 gallon nursery pots over Lowes 5 gallon buckets (unless I was building a DIY self-watering system).
 
The nursery pots are broader and flatter.  The 5 gallon buckets are kind-of deep.  Plant roots will prefer to spread out in the shallow portion, and may not fully utilize the deep portion of a 5 gallon bucket.
 
 

Ah so they're much better. Something to keep in mind next year then. so the nursery pots already have drainage holes and i don't need to poke more holes?
 
I use 1 gallon and 3 gallon smart pots. I really like them. The soil does tend to dry out quicker though, but that doesn't bother me at all. I like to check my plants daily anyway.
 
I didnt buy the airpots just because they cost so much more.
I didnt make my own because I didnt want to spend time doing it.
I didnt use the shopping fabric bags because I had seen some concerns that there are chemicals/additives/plastics in the actual fabric that can leach into your plants. For a plant that I am consuming I preferred not to take that chance. How much truth is too the statement I do not know, but for how inexpensive smart-pots are, it was worth the piece of mind. Also some of the fabric shopping bags are biodegradable and will deteriorate outside.
 
Codeman said:
 
Ah so they're much better. Something to keep in mind next year then. so the nursery pots already have drainage holes and i don't need to poke more holes?
 

I wouldn't say they're "much better", but they should be somewhat better, and the nursery pots will already have drainage holes.
 
As a side benefit, if you use proper nursery pots, then you don't have to worry about accidentally pouring paint into a Lowe's bucket that previously had holes drilled in the bottom for use as a planter.  :)
 
I have some reaper growing in grow bags, they seem to work just fine. Some worry about water but it's easy enough to tell when your plants are stressed. I usually throw rainwater in them once in the morning, I never try to stress them though.
 
Walchit said:
People seem to like grow bags, I was gonna try to sew some of my own this year. There are guys growing stuff in the Walmart reusable grocery sacs on YouTube. I think they might dry out faster than pots, but I'm not even sure of that
I saw that looked like something I shall try

Regards,
-Tristan
 
Walchit said:
I don't think 5 gallon nursery pots are as big as 5 gallon buckets though. Correct me if I'm wrong. But 15 gallon nursery pots don't seem like three five gallon buckets to me
Yeah when I started I figured out US gallons is different than a horticultural gallon which is like 0.78 US gal=1 horticulture gallon.. Weird!

Regards,
-Tristan
 
YAMracer754 said:
Yeah when I started I figured out US gallons is different than a horticultural gallon which is like 0.78 US gal=1 horticulture gallon.. Weird!

Regards,
-Tristan
 
As I've said many times, I learn something new here almost everyday!
 
I too noticed that "garden pots" seem to run smaller than the "gallon" sizing listed on them. So a quick US gallon vs horticultural gallon - GOOGLE Search produced what I believe to be an accurate explanation considering how most packaging of garden items (Soil/Media) is in cubic "whatever".
 
trade gallon is a unit of volume for standard plant containers in the horticultural industries. It equals 3 US liquid quarts or 0.75 US gallons, Notably, 10 trade gallons equals 30 US quarts, which in turn equals 1.0 cubic foot, a common unit of measurement for soil.
 

NECM
 
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DontPanic said:
Edit: I seeThe_NorthEast_ChileMan beat me to the post.  :)
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The_NorthEast_ChileMan said:
 
As I've said many times, I learn something new here almost everyday!
 
I too noticed that "garden pots" seem to run smaller than the "gallon" sizing listed on them. So a quick US gallon vs horticultural gallon - GOOGLE Search produced what I believe to be an accurate explanation considering how most packaging of garden items (Soil/Media) is in cubic "whatever".
 
trade gallon is a unit of volume for standard plant containers in the horticultural industries. It equals 3 US liquid quarts or 0.75 US gallons, Notably, 10 trade gallons equals 30 US quarts, which in turn equals 1.0 cubic foot, a common unit of measurement for soil.
 
NECM
 
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You're just like me where if there's something we don't know-gotta dig deeper! Good work! Yeah the grow bags run the same. Feel bad for all the retailers on amazon with terrible reviews over sizing not being big enough e.g. 5 gallon bag smaller than 5 gallon bucket so they give a bad review on the company..

Regards,
-Tristan
 
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