Initially I planted 3 seeds directly in soil. After about a week one came up, the other 2 didnt. I then germinated seeds in paper towels, 2 days and they sprouted. Best way to go IMO. I start them all in 1/2 beer cans. I started off using some potting soil similar to miracle grow with fertilizer. After a couple of weeks I noticed on the big plant that the new leaf tips were brown. I did some reading and decided it might be the nutes in the potting soil. I had already repotted the big one to its final pot in the same soil but when I did the smaller ones last weekend I got some plain potting soil with no nutes. Dont know if that fixed problem yet or not, but I see no brown tips yet. The potting soil with no nuteds looks completely different, more like sandy loam with some peat moss and perlite in it. I just water when they are dry, the small starter pots about every other day. The big pots maybe every 3 or 4 days. For nutes I have a 20-20-20 commercial version of miracle grow that I foliar feed at a really week rate about 1 a week. But I have cut that off since the brown tips. I also add a little epsom salts to thee water for magnesium... Since they are all in flower now I will be using some schulz liquid I found for flowering. I think t says violets. I also have some blood meal and some bone meal which I sprinkled a little of in the pots that will be absorbed over time when I water. I am basically in a holding pattern on the nutes now because of the brown tips. I will start back this weekend, then maybe once a week or once every other with the stuff in the water sprayed over the plants 1 or 2 times a week. I got a warm mist humidifier in there now to raise the humidity and the temp. Just waiting for them to take off with flowers, just started this week on a 12/12 schedule.