10 gallon pots — plant size and difficulty to move?

Am doing my first grow in 30 years, first ever in a pot, and first grow with my girlfriend’s son.

We have a GSC (feminized) in a 5 gal pot. The plant is 30” tall and growing great. We are on Long Island, NY, zone 7a. I expect that this plant will go into flower late August/early September, or 12 weeks from now, with harvest in Nov.

Our plan was to start bringing the plant indoors during cold and rainy weather during the flower stage. That seemed okay when we were dealing with a 5 gallon pot, but watching this thing grow I’m wondering whether we need a bigger pot?

I’ve read other posts about using larger pots and the consensus seems to be to go as big as you can handle.

Our questions are:

What size plant can I expect in a 10 gallon pot and how difficult is it to move a pot/plant of this size?

If we stay with the 5 gallon pot and force the plant to self-limit, will that affect the quality of the end result?

Appreciate any advice you can provide!

10 gallon will be about 100lbs or more when wet. Plus the awkward size of the plant, I can’t see you moving it around.

I'm 60 and in pretty good shape but I recently scratched the idea of 10's because 5 gallon is manageable but twice that would not be for me.
concidering 7's

Think positive
You may not even have a weather concern come fall

Weird year so far

Brettman said:

10 gallon will be about 100lbs or more when wet. Plus the awkward size of the plant, I can’t see you moving it around.

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I bet @Wizzlebiz could move it.

Ive seen huge plants and personally grown outdoor plants to 8+ feet in pots 5 gallons and less.
10 gallon pots are heavy when theyre dry, and extremely heavy when theyre wet. It takes a fit person, possibly 2 strong people to move them in either case....and the handles will likely rip off in the process. If youre gonna pot it up, you should make sure u have it in a permanent place. And careful transplanting a mature plant like that is gonna stress in the bright sun of summer. Enjoy.

Get one of these...may have to rachet strap the bucket to the dolly when you move it, but thats how it's done. Dont get one with hard plastic wheels

15 gal cloth pot is good for 2 ppl to carry wo a problem, am 115lbs soaking wet and can drag myself, hurts but can do it. 10g too small for time you have, would suggest tying branches to stalk for later flowering, and this is without training and bulking up. Stripping all lower buds to top 3 will produce all big buds, no larfable shit. I did 2nd wèek of flower to my supprise all colas! No crap to make hash or give away. Just bud! Good luck, do a few. Youll be happy if doing light dep as well. Will be done early this way. Start july and end b4 rains.

Its very early, mey l suggest supercropping? That plant will be huge next month! Or top and clone tops? Then youll have 3. Just a suggestion is all. I only lst, no toppjng but thought it was good idea.

twentyeight.threefive said:

I bet @Wizzlebiz could move it.

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Lmao definitely.

10 gallon aren't that heavy, I say go for it. I dont think they even weigh 30 kg. But if you find that heavy you could build some kind of base with wheels on it , like this one:

On second thought you should build a base with wheels, because even if you can lift such pot, it would be a pain in the lower back to lift it frequently.

Yeah I was just thinking water weight. So it would have to be fully saturated to be 100lbs. I still think a full sized plant will be awkward as fuck to move around.

Brettman said:

Yeah I was just thinking water weight. So it would have to be fully saturated to be 100lbs. I still think a full sized plant will be awkward as fuck to move around.

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it is awkward, in my first and second grow, I didn't have a tent, lamp, etc. And I was moving my plants around my house, chasing sunlight. When they got to flower, week 4+, It was awkward because the colas where hitting my face when I lifted the pots, they were hitting the doors when I was moving them around xD. Although those were funny moments for me, Im glad I dont have to do that anymore.

Brettman said:

Yeah I was just thinking water weight. So it would have to be fully saturated to be 100lbs. I still think a full sized plant will be awkward as fuck to move around.

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Well 100 lb is actually quite a bit, I thought it was way less than that. Certainly no one wants to be moving around that amount.

twentyeight.threefive said:

I bet @Wizzlebiz could move it.

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All 3 last year were 10 gallon. I carried them across the yard to the shed every evening to ensure no light leak issues from street lights.

Yep same in the morning to the sunny area of the yard.

So yes absolutely. Maybe 60lbs per plant fully watered. Shouldn't be that big of a deal. Lol

Expect about double this Size if not bigger in 10 gallon

pine boy said:

I'm 60 and in pretty good shape but I recently scratched the idea of 10's because 5 gallon is manageable but twice that would not be for me.
concidering 7's

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7's are perfect for me in my 4x4 tent. I've tried a couple grows in 25 gal pots but never more... my back can no longer take it! It's 7-gal pots for me forever...

Thanks to everyone for all the great advice.

We’re going to go to a 10-gallon pot and put it on a base with wheels similar to what DoobieDoobs and mudballs suggested. We’re not going to remove the plant from the 5-gallon. We’re going to put the whole thing into the 10-gallon and let the roots grow through the pot.

The 10-gallon pot will stay in the garden until the weather gets too cold and damp at which time we’ll move it to the garage that faces south and put it on the base. It won’t get as much direct sun since the garage is shaded by trees and those should have leaves in Oct., but my thought is that losing some yield is better than getting mold at the late stage.

We’ll keep an eye on its height in the garden so that it doesn’t get taller than the garage door (LST, HST, supercrop, chainsaw?). The garage is set back from the road a distance and we have a car we can park in front of it to help shield the plant from view.

This is a learning experience and this is the plant we are growing in a pot. I am growing a GSC in my own garden and that one is in the ground. We’ll be able to compare the two methods.

Hey, maybe what Herb & Suds said will come true and we won’t have to move it at all!

Thanks again and happy growing!

Here’s an update on our first grow of GSC. Photos are from Aug 7th.

The plant really filled out in the 10-gal pot, but hasn’t gotten much taller. My original question was whether we would be able to manage the size of a plant in a 10-gal pot. This will not be a problem for us. We’re happy with the 10-gal pot.

Another pleasantly weird thing is that the plant went into flower a few weeks ago. We live on Long Island, NY and I was expecting the plants to flower in mid August at the earliest. We have a 2nd plant (bag seed) that is just starting to show pre-flower.

It’s really cool seeing trichomes and my girlfriend’s son is stoked (although he still cringes when we say “nutes” ). We’re using the Fox Farm trio and just started Tiger Bloom.

Are we at the the point of flowering where we should protect the plant from rain? Does everything else look good?