what would be best?

hello everyone,

so i wanna do an outdoor grow this season. i have some potential problems though. i wanna maximize yield and let my roots grow large, but the soil is a tad bit shitty and digging out a hole and filling it up with good soil might be out of the question. I was thinking about using five gallon buckets (or would that be too small and grow a midget plant??) plus what do you all think about those crystals that expand with water to reduce the amount of times i have to water ??

any help would be appreciated thanks

search around the site man. i had the exact same question and ive found dozens of threads on this topic. i still havent made my decision though, guess its just my paranoia