Why is a one gallon nursery pot referred to as such when it doesn't hold one gallon? Why do I care? (No, I'm not working on a Seinfeld impression.) I'm trying to determine the volumes of my various containers. In order to confirm that I've done my calculations correctly I put a one gallon nursery pot through the calculation. The result was .86 U.S. gal. or 0.71 imperial gal. What gives?
Did you allow for compost compression? (15-20%) i get about 50 or so 1 litre pots from a 75ltr bag of compost.
I think it's just a convenience factor and it stanardizes it for the industry and nursery trade right across North America The same applies to any of the other 2gal and up sized pots as well. It's much easier to say "one gallon" than "point seven one gallon", or what ever the equivalant might be.
Both theories sound plausible. Perhaps one gallon of fluffy soil is what these pots will hold but LPN's explanation is more likely; common-sized pots needed a name and 1-gal was the closest approximate size. I just thought there might be an interesting story to go with the inconsistency.
I don't think it would be legal to sell an incorrectly described product, weights and measure laws are there to protect against that sort of thing...........I searched the web for the answer to no avail.......here its different, a 1 litre pot holds 1 litre a fluffy compost. If you can find a phone number on your pot, you could ring the manufacturer (please do, because now im fascinated as to why a gallon pot doesn't hold the right quantity of compost) when i spoke to my compost supplier asking why i wasn't getting 75 1 litre pots from 75 litres of compost, he said it was because of the compost compression, and they have seperate laws to govern how they measure and sell compost.
In all my years gardening and running a nursery, I've never seen a pot marked "one gallon". The maufacturors mark these in dementions (width and depth) and periodically you'll see one marked #1 pot. The term "one gallon" along with all the other sized pots are terminology adopted by nurserymen, gardeners, wholesalers etc, to easily discribe this particular sized pot. So ... there's no legal implications regarding pot sizes.
The two pots I have came with purchased plants and are not marked as 1-gal pots. I don't know if any of them are indicated as such for that matter although one is marked as #1 - yet another name for the same product. It just seems to be what people call them so in that sense no law is broken. If I called up the manufacturer on this they would think I'm potty (pun intended). Maybe that's how the term 'potty' came about! :D
