tlbean2004, thank you for your response. I am located in Virginia Beach, VA. Our weather has been fluctuating a lot lately. A couple of the recent days have been very humid and in the 90's while other days have been cool 70's. We have also had spells of dry sunny breezy days and a couple rainy wet days. In regards to pests, I have found a couple of small "regular" spiders and one tiny red spider (spider mite?). I have removed all that I found, sprayed with insecticidal soap and have not seen any others for the last few days. Hopefully, someone here can identify the problem and has a cure. I am rather new to gardening and am learning as I go. :-)

Thanks for the reply! I'll take a close up of the area and post tomorrow - but it's not yellow or tan - just bright green and mossy. I live in Chicago and and never use a sprinkler, always mow high and not sure on the type of grass. I haven't mowed that corner of the lawn for most of the last summer - it didn't grow much at all and the ground was always soaked that the mower would tear up the grass just by going over it. I have removed the standing water issue around the end of the garden so hopefully that part of the lawn will dry out but was unsure of the next steps to bring this area back to normal healthy growth. Should I 'wait and see' once the lawn had a chance to dry out to see if it recovers or should I be looking to apply any specific fertilizer or pesticide to address the current state, etc? Somewhat related, I have buried a corrugated drain pipe to the end of the lawn so the sump pump water exits the end of the lawn, is it generally ok for there to be some standing water in the end of the pipe? If you look in the pop up emitter, there is always water in there that will only get pushed out once the simp pump runs and pushes that standing water out...

Haven't started peas before, so thanks for the tip! Will try that next year :) Just wondering if anybody here knew what this issue was though since it also affected almost all of the pepper seeds I started as well. The newer seeds were somehow able to power through it, but the older seeds were all overwhelmed by the affliction.

Heartwood rot is not treatable and spraying the exterior of the tree will have no effect one way or the other. Since it will do no good, there is no reason to spray. Heartwood rot is generally attributed to damage to the trunk or limbs or improper pruning so replanting in the same area should make no difference.