How dry should the soil be before i rewater?

Should i be able to have atleast an inch of soil completly dry, more, less, or what? I water very often, imo to often, but i cant tell how dry to let the soil get... I typically give each plant like .5 quarts about every 2 days, temps are to high and i need to lower them... but watering is my newest challenge.

3 inches .........

Let them dry out to the point that they wilt. Water them and see how many days it takes for them to wilt. After that water 1 day before they wilt. When they are dry,dry lift the pot and use that as a guide as well.

I let the soil completely dry in between waterings

Really really dry, you should easily be able to pick up a 3 gallon pot with 1 hand when its ready to be watered.

its tough to hold back the urge to water sometimes, I'm betting every grower on this forum at one time or another is guilty of overwatering. It can be especially hard in the beginning. Once your plant starts to develop my solution would be to go out and buy a moister meter (usually will read light/ph as well) from the Home Depot for about $10. Measure your pot's depth and then stick the ends of the rods about 2/3s down into the soil, not to close to the roots (don't want to damage them), and that will give you a great reading on how moist the soil is around the roots.

Don't take the visible areas of soil as an indicator of moisture. Even if the top layer is bone dry that doesn't mean that inches further down (where its more important) are sufficiently wet.

You definately need to play around with them and see when they react.