First grow, seedlings in soil, started in final pots

Hey all! Might be a simple question but I'm at a loss and want to double check.

Just started my first grow finally and decided to start them off in their final pots. Doing a Happy Frog run amended with Nature's Living Soil autoflower mix with a cup sized hole filled with just happy frog for the seedling.

So I followed directions of Mr. Canucks Grow and BeginnerBudz and placed my seeds directly in soil to start, misted the top and turned on the light. Light is an sf-2000 almost 40 inches away from seedlings at the moment.

The videos I watched showed all of them mist or very lightly water the seed, then immediately the next shot is seedlings bursting through. How often should I be misting the soil? I've been misting lightly every 4-6 hours just to keep the top layer slightly moist but I'm worried the water isn't going very deep. How moist should I be keeping it? 2 inches of soil deep moist? Or continue to simply mist the top until they pop?

So for starters, I'm not particularly familiar with Mr. Canuck but from what I've seen new growers seem to struggle with his methods even though he supposedly gets killer results. Someday I'll actually watch his videos I guess.

But anyways, I digress. When I planted seeds directly in soil I usually do it under a weaker lamp, plant in premoistened soil and cover the seed spot with a solo cup to keep it nice and humid. I almost never have to water again before it pops after two or three days and I certainly don't mist anything. Your right that misting the surface of the soil isn't particularly efficient, especially if it's even remotely dry in your grow area, because a large amount of that mist is just evaporating.

These days I mostly use rapid rooters largely because it's easier to put them over a heat source. Seeds like a nice warm environment to germinate. It's hard to get a 3 gallon pot of soil warm enough, so the seeds take too long to crack for my liking. Not that that helps you at all with this plant, but for future reference.

He's great! Super helpful and responds often to comments do surprisingly.

I'm not doing a solo cup but humidity in the tent is around 70-75%. While the lights not weak I think I have it far enough away that it doesn't pose an issue, plus temps in the tent with the light is around 70-75 degrees as well. When you say pre-moistened soil do you mean it came like that in the bag? The foxfarm out of the bag almost felt wet when mixing it around so I only watered a little bit at first. Good to know though. Yeah I've looked into different ways like that and I looked into rapid rooters, but the two youtubers I watched the most both start seeds this way so I figured I'd try it.

Thanks!

Also, does it matter if I have my lights on 24 hours atm? Or should I give it some off time?

No, I soak my soil a little ahead of time so it's moist but not drenched when the seed goes in.

Starting in soil is obviously a tried and true method, but I don't like the lack of control over the environment. Plus I'm impatient and you can see the seed cracking in the rooters so I know when they're coming up haha.

Just keep the soil moist and the seed should crack in a couple days. I wouldn't stress misting it every x hours, just make sure the soil doesn't dry out.

And ya, from what I've seen, Mr. Canuck grows some dope plants. But his methods all seem more journeyman than novice from what people post on here. There always seems to be an easier way to learn the ropes. He's the guy that does the coco with dry amendments right? I've seen so many new growers try his coco methods and struggle immensely. The ones that master it get great results, but most people fail miserably.

I grow autos with my vegging photos I always sprout them and then put in direct pots under cfls for 2 weeks then let them fly

I germ straight in the medium too. Have for 15 yrs and really don't understand how germing a seed got so complex. Its the easiest part of growing!
Any medium must be premoistened prior to planting. That means making sure your medium drains well by watering first....I use solo cup for every start...easy pesy. Warmth and moisture does it every time.
I run my germ light 24/0 … but yours may be a bit intense for seedlings.

Oldreefer said:

I germ straight in the medium too. Have for 15 yrs and really don't understand how germing a seed got so complex. Its the easiest part of growing!
Any medium must be premoistened prior to planting. That means making sure your medium drains well by watering first....I use solo cup for every start...easy pesy. Warmth and moisture does it every time.
I run my germ light 24/0 … but yours may be a bit intense for seedlings.

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So I'm doing organic soil so I was told to avoid watering to drainage but it seemed pretty moist out of the bag, especially the NLS mix so I felt all I had to do was moisten the top intermittently with a spray bottle. Thanks for making me feel better about it!

Never seen any soil that was moist enough right out of the bag. You def "felt" wrong about " just misting.... If using organic nutes, watering until runoff is not needed....if using chem nutes, it IS necessary.