How to know when to water?

I am working on my first grow, things are going well, but I'm wondering how to know when to water, other than by buying a hydrometer, which I can get locally, but haven't as of yet...

I seem to be watering less and less, as the plants seem to explode when they are relatively dry. The plants are 19 days old (from when they popped through the soil) and are happy, so I'm not really worried here, but in the interest of trying to really learn what's going on, I want to know how other people know when it's time to water.

I started out watering daily, switched to every other day about day 5, and now I'm waiting more like 60 hours between waterings. I'm expecting to stretch that to 72 hrs today if everybody seems to be happy this afternoon.

My containers are 3 gallon waste baskets that I drilled 3/4" holes in for drainage. I water each container with 1 pint of water, and it will seep out of the containers a few min after watering most of the time. I get like 1/4-1/2" of seepage into the trays the containers sit in.

What are your thoughts on when to water?

I'm in 3gl pails too. I just stick my finger in the soil as far as I can, if it is almost dry, just a little damp I water, I think about 2L. I just finished Vegging and I think I watered about once a week.

.... I use an old water meter .... it doesn't work .... but I can use the probe to find out if the plants need watering .... if dirt come up on the probe and it feels moist then it doesn't need watering ..... if there is no dirt on the probe or the pot is light then it probably needs watering ....

.... I heard overwatering is a problem with newbies so be careful.

:noel: