How much water?

At a time, that is.

I am growing a couple of plants in 3 Gal pots of soil. I have read so much about not over-watering, so I want to avoid that. I've been doing the "Stick a finger in it" thing, and when it feels dry, I put in about a pint of water, about every two days or so.

They've been looking sorta lank lately, and this morning they were quite droopy. I gave them each a full quart, and they perked right up. I've read https://www.rollitup.org/newbie-central/1185-quick-simple-watering-question.html and it says to water until it comes out the bottom, but that sounds messy.

Any guidelines on how much at a time, or should I just get some saucers? I can see how things could change, depending on ambient factors, like temp and RH, so the visual way might be the best?

I water every third day. I have four plants going, one week into flower. The qty goes up as they grow. I currently use 2.5 - 3 gal per watering. I have a drip system so it is nice and slow. When Any plant starts to have run off, I stop its supply of water. Then I wait a little while, loft it up to allow some more drainage, and dump water run off there was.

The simple answer is to let them get dry and fully saturate the soil. But lots of factors, heat, rh, how fast you pour, etc have an impact.

Hope that helps.

Yeah, I've been reluctant to saturate the soil, needlessly, really. The pots have drainage, and it's not every day.

I went with soil because it seemed less complex that all that Hydro stuff, but it still doesn't grow itself! Got to keep aware.

i had puzzled over this when i started this hobby, it wasn't so easy to find, go figure
deeper waterings done less often are better, i get by with once a week
but my grow chambers temps are low, so once a week is fine, your mileage can vary
i did see the 1 quart of water per 1 gallon of soil posted in a number of threads
that does seem to work well, though i've trimmed it down to a bit less