how much water does a 5 gallon bucket full of soil hold?

I repotted to 5 gallon buckets. how much water do i feed? afraid to way over water them and it flood my cabinet.

there are some variables involved here, how fast you actually poor in the water, how big are the drainage holes, the soil density, etc. etc.

Slowly poor the water in until you get a small amount of drainage.....check the soil tomorrow, stick you finger down a few inches and see if that soil is moist, if it is youre all set, if not give it a little more.

you want to saturate your soil completely put a tray under it witha drain or move it into your tub every watering i use to have to do this and it sucks! i now have a built in drain on my flower pot's drain tray.

SweetnSauer said:

I repotted to 5 gallon buckets. how much water do i feed? afraid to way over water them and it flood my cabinet.

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Until you get good runoff. Figure out a way to catch it. Because if you dont then down the grow you will most likely have salt build up in your medium. Over watering is caused by watering to frequently, not using too much water when they are ready to be watered......I generally use 2-2 1/2 gallons of water in my 5 gal containers...

If you can, take them to your Tub to water them, that way you can let them sit for a few minutes to let excess water drain out.

I know this thread is on the more comatose side of life, however for research purposes a catching method I found to be very useful (and less of a pain in my and the plants asses as taking them all to the bath tub every watering) is tin catering dishes underneath the buckets. You sometimes have to bend them, but they come in all kinds of sizes to meet the needs of different size buckets.

yeah im one of those people that take their plants to the sink everytime. Where i grow this isn't a bathtub so thats not an option.

I may be one of the few who tries give as much water as there is soil. for example...if im using 5 gal pots i give 5 gal of water every watering/feeding.

im thinking that might be more than exactly necessary but i do it just to be safe.

i might experiment with giving half the size of the container this time around.

whats considered optimum amount of water for X amount of soil?

themanwiththeplan said:

whats considered optimum amount of water for X amount of soil?

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maybe if you specified what kind of soil mix you are using.........

i didnt think what type of soil mattered. generally i either use ocean forest or black gold (organic) mixed with perlite.

Go down to Wally world & pick up some cheap plastic totes that he buckets just barely fit in, and water the shit out of your plants, suck up the run-off with a wet/dry vac.
There, problem solved.