Everyday (several times a day) I look at my seed lying on damp earth and try to gauge "is it damp enough" or "does the seed look swollen" or "is my straw too dry" or "egads the sun is out"- it's been a stressful couple of weeks. I was wondering about the degree of moisture that a seed needed to stay viable and I am much heartened by the replies that it all just might work out OK. We all do that. :-) I use the knee test. I kneel on the edge of the seed bed for five seconds or so (usually pulling a particularly obnoxious weed I can't stand any more). If the trousers come up with the knee damp and definitely damping the skin of my knee, it's way damp enough. Somewhat damp is fine. Barely damp and it needs more water. Seeds don't need that much water to sprout. Two waterings a day of 15 to 20 minutes is just fine. More won't hurt unless the water puddles without draining, in which case the seed may rot on you. That doesn't seem to happen all that often.

I am not an expert. That out the way, lets look at some orchids in nature. High elevations for the most part, several hundred to thousands of feet. High up in tree canopy, couple hundred feet. Light canopy coverage, constantly moving branchlets overhead. Equatorial locations, consistent 12 hour light period virtually year round. If you get from that that a longer rather than shorter period of light is required you would be right. Situations like our east and west window locations are unknown and are not dealt with well for the most part. Light will be too intense for too short a period of time. Under lights the situation is vastly improved but the lights need to have a minimum intensity of around 500fc for phals and ~1000fc for anything considered medium light. ~2000fc would not go amiss for high light types. At these kinds of intensities 12hr is absolute minimum, 14hr, much better and 16hr best. Going over 16hr brings you past the point of diminishing returns, plants need to sleep like you do. Not surprised the T5 'only' do 1800fc they are 'only' high output not 'very high output'. And no, they won't do anything beyond what they are rated for, there isn't any intrinsic benefit to being T5 vs T8, all the money buys you is miniaturization, the tubes are thinner and the fixtures sleeker. High output T8 are available and will be just as bright as T5 at lower cost... if you can find them. For a closet I can't imagine doing better than finding one of those rolling clothes racks that the better hotels roll your hangables on and hanging a couple or three CFL or Wonderlite from. At floor level will be all the light you could want depending on what you want to spend for bulbs and kilowatt hours to run them. H

you have to understand, tomato cages are not used where i live (croatia), you can't buy them, and making them would cost loads. and honestly, i don't see the point, except for tomatoes grown in containers (which is very very rare here). there are a myriad of simpler solutions, people here sometimes emulate the greenhouse system of tying, by putting in the ground two concrete poles on the opposite sides of the tomato row (we use them in vineyards to attach wire too) and string the wire between them at about 2 m high. then attach a single lead for each plant to that wire and the ground beside the plant. then as the tomato grows just wrap it around the lead, it ends up supporting itself no matter how big or heavy it gets. the thing is, i plant more of them so if a couple die, or get diseased i just don't care. also, i plant a lot of varieties and am not OCD about taking care of them. as i said, some just sprawl around, and i'm happy even if i pick a bit less fruit from them than if i was fussing over every detail and stressing out ( i have chillies for that lol ). i was just explaining this to my mother the other day, she was freaked out by some of the sprawling ones touching the ground : "oooomg why are they down there, you know they'll get diseased! and you didn't prune them, birds will fall from the sky when they fly over your tomatoes! no they won't, over the years i've realized tomatoes are much stronger than we give them credit for, leaving them the hell alone to do their thing is the best fertilizer in the world (as a member on another pepper forum said when i posted the above chilli pictures haha). to get back to tying them up, there is also this tunnel system used here occasionally, which may or may not have netting put over the top of that center line, again relatively simple and effective. about selling produce, i don't sell, would you believe? i cook a LOT of paste and sauces, and interestingly how ever much i make i always run out before the next season's harvest. relatives and friends have gotten used to the "tasty paste" and snag it all away haha. the thing is, here most people are still growing oxhearts (if they are growing anything at all, the "grow your own food" movement hasn't really caught on yet, especially among my generation - under 30), and simple red cherries were considered exotic not that long ago. so when i cook or give away a rainbow of colors from my 30ish varieties it makes quite a bang. about space, i have what would translate to 3.7 acres of land around my house, most of it just empty with some fruit trees and stuff. but planting all that in tomatoes would be insane of course, so i think of it as unlimited space but limited gardener time and energy :D anyhow, to sum this way longer than needed post up, i think one has to decide where their priorities are, and cross reference that with available nerve and happiness amounts. in the middle is what you do to your plants :)

i dont know why a dormant plant would need winter watering ... especially if you healed them into non draining clay soil ... [you leave out some essential facts to figuring out what went wrong] imo .. the base issue was winter in a pot ... you should have healed them into mother earth .... without the pot ... in late fall ... if you had them then ... in essence.. you healed the pot in .. and held the plant in a plastic pot which i presume... may have been partially out of the soil ... just a variable you should have avoided ... instead of just planting them.. you created a number of variable over which you had no ability to control .... ken