OK so I'm trying to get a handle on watering, everyone seems to recommend watering by weight but I'm having a hard time finding a concise breakdown of what exactly that should look like. I searched & didn't see a thread based solely around this & thought it might be a good idea to start one so anyone that comes after me can get a jump start on my learning process. I'm going to post the process I'm attempting now & where I run into issues/questions & hopefully someone with a better grasp of this will come by & correct anywhere I'm making mistakes/answer questions.

So as of now I'm filling a cup with dirt straight from the bin then weighing it. I was writing it on the cups but I've found it's pretty consistent at about 230g so I just know where they're all at. Then I water before planting my seed, basically I water lightly until I just start to see runoff then I weigh it again. When my weight starts to get back to the original weight before my initial watering I water again.

When I do the watering after the seed has sprouted & the cup dried I am noticing that I struggle to get the water back up to the original weight & even getting them to take water at all. For instance I had a cup that weighed about 250 after I watered it originally (I was honestly experimenting with using less water on planting & I probably should have added more to that one when I planted) it got down to 230 so I watered it again, it was so dry that water just puddles on top of the soil, once I finally get it to start to soak in (I'm having to aerate the top soil to get it to soak, I put a small amount on & waited 30 minutes & it's still puddled on top) I'm struggling to get it back to even 240g before it starts getting a decent amount of runoff.


So I guess my questions are, is the game plan I'm currently using sound? Should I be concerned that I can't get the cups to hold the same amount of water after letting them dry back & that the water just wants to puddle at the surface of the dry soil? Thanks in advance for any help.