A lot of the NE has outstanding soil. Unless it has been worked for a while you should do fine by mixing native soil with coco or something for aeration. The coco will leech nutrients from the natural soil and minerals and some roots will even make their way into the dense natural soil! The NE is FILLLED with good mineral composition. Some areas in the NE could nail it with green houses and little more. Albeit the sun exposure isn't always great.
Make sure the coco filled area (maybe 2ftx2ft) has enough nutrient value to get the small plants to grow the root zone and expand into the natural soil but once it does that the coco leeches nutrients into itself while the roots expand and gran nutrients and water from outside the coco mixture as well, but the mass of the root ball will be where the coco is. That's ok. Fill in coco for however big you think the root ball and plant should be, or how big you'd like it to ideally be.
You don't have to buy anything other than coco. You don't have to put plastic containers out, simply mix soil with coco in the rough size you would like the root ball and plant to be, done. May not even have to water it. Maybe a little organic neem oil or something to keep bugs away during veg.
I might add, this is when your (theoretical) year long compost bin comes in handy...Mix some of the coco with the compost to get it started, but again, once it gets going the native soil should do well. Maybe some basic sugars during flower to help resin production but keep it bottle less, and don't use bagged soil outside. It's a huge waste. In general I think bagged soil is a scam but that's another discussion.