Can I use much smaller felt pots?
I used 5 gallon pots with 3 gallons worth of soil to try and keep em kinda smallish?
Discussion
Yes. You can go total bonsai-bonghitter if you want. Larger plants are more forgiving though. If you don't have much space, then do what you have to do. The larger the rootzone, the more nutrient uptake you will have.
If you can, grow sideways more than tall. The top branches get the most light, and the thickest/densest colas. This makes harvest WAY easier than processing a bunch of smaller nugs. When dried, the size shrinks to about a third of what it was when it was alive and wet.
A wider pot is better than a 5 gallon bucket. The bucket method will make a "Charlie Brown Christmas Tree" sized plant (although I hope it's more lush!). The same volume of soil that allows for a wider set of surface roots will give you a heartier plant that will have significantly more output.
Grow sideways? By topping?
Yeah, that's one way. If you can make a hedge, you're on the right track.
Topping, training branches with wire, or trellis (depending on the size of your garden), and pruning, are all opportunities to shape the plant as it grows.
It may be tricky to determine what a cut here, today, makes the plant look like later, until you've been through a season. The good news is that cannabis is very forgiving, once it gets going.
A total stoner method of "growing sideways" is to grow a plant in a pot until it's 2'-4' tall. Then transplant it into it's final home/pot, but at a severe angle. The tip will curl up, and all the side banches that are facing up will stretch to compete for the tallest position.
That's another trick making your plant "turbo boost" for a few day. Take the tallest cola, and gently bend it at the base. Continue bending gently, but increase the distance you move it. Eventually, you'll b# able to bend it so it is pointing downward, and below the other "top colas". They will now compete to be the Queen Cola, and stretch taller.
Also, it is possible to grow too big. Once a cannabis plant gets larger than 10'-15' diameter, the percentage of THC decreases with increased size. I've seen plenty of monsters that dwarf 10' diameter plants, but size doesn't equal strength.
I appreciate all the information you provided thank you.
For sure! If you couldn't tell, I love sharing what I know. Feel free to ask me more question, DM, or whatever. It's all fun, can be simple and easy, and can be taken to complex levels. Once you grok some basic concepts, the rest builds off of it easily.
I've even seen people take a bag of soil, drop it (flat) where they want the plant, cut an X across the label (which is facing up, at this point), and plant a clone. It worked just fine, even if it wasn't peak optimization. 😜