How much soil for a 5-gallon bucket??

  • Thread starter Jimson
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J

Jimson

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I am 'helping' a friend 4 states away setup his 12 5-gallon earth-box type buckets.

They are going for Coco Basement mix which says "1.5 cubic feet 38.6 Dry Quarts ..." on the bag.

So - :dull - does that mean that one bag will fill two 5 gallon pots?

TIA
 
H

hclip

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That sounds about right, I use 16 quarts of perlite per 5 gallon bucket. It should work out the same.
 
R

radical farmer

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Yeah, theres a little over 9 gallons in 1.5cu.ft of soil.
 
LittleDabbie

LittleDabbie

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No thats actually not true......for example. ....a 3 gal pot does not actually hold 3 gallons it more like 2.3

If you fill it with 3 gallons of liquid or sand it will hold a full 3 :P

Soil = air pockets = you can't fit a full 3.

My point was if 1 pot is 5 gallon and 1 bucket is 5 gallon they both will hold the same amount of soil.. In that case about 4-4.5
 
G gnome

G gnome

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If you fill it with 3 gallons of liquid or sand it will hold a full 3 :p

Soil = air pockets = you can't fit a full 3.

My point was if 1 pot is 5 gallon and 1 bucket is 5 gallon they both will hold the same amount of soil.. In that case about 4-4.5
Heres a 5 gal bucket and a 5 gal pot. They're not the same volume.
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LittleDabbie

LittleDabbie

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5 gallons of liquid does indeed occupy a volume of 0.67 cubic feet (5 gallons divided by 7.48 gallons per cubic foot), but a "5-gallon" bucket actually holds a bit more than 5 gallons. Take your bucket and a 1-gallon jug, fill the bucket with water a gallon at a time, and mark the side of the bucket at each 1 gallon interval. You will discover that the 5 gallon mark ends up about 1.75 inches from the top of the bucket. Therefore a full bucket really holds somewhere in the neighborhood of 5.75 gallons (+/- a few ounces, depending on bucket manufacturer). This "extra" space in the bucket is there for practical reasons, as well as for safety--imagine the mess potential in opening a bucket of paint that is full to the very tip-top. So if you are filling your bucket to the top, you are really dealing with a volume of about 0.77 cubic feet.


Like i said one of those is not 5 gallons :D 5 Gallon buckets hold more then 5 gallons but we just call them 5 gallon buckets instead of 6 gallon buckets or whatever.. :D
 
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