I hesitate to advise anyone on what to do. Personally this early I would start over. Spinach usually germinates for me in 7-10 days or less. So allows plenty of time before warm up. Another option is to start some more and pot this up and see what happens. Jay

The thought that goes through my mind is, would I want to use up my valuable shelf space on questionable plants? I might want to be prepping these for outside life and start over. These plants may or may not make it outside, but you would have healthy one coming along to take their place.

Larry

Well, heaven knows I have grown enough of the leggy ones, but I would venture a yes. Simply because there is time to start over, and I would check your lighting next time, making sure they are in "full" lights, nice sunny window. (I noticed you didn't have grow lights...which is why I said full sunny window)

Good luck!

I am wondering if there is a reason you planted spinach inside instead of directly? Even with quite of bit of seed starting room and lights I have always just put it in the ground in late February or early March. If you want to hasten its germination, you can warm the bed with a piece of clear plastic for a couple weeks prior to planting. You can plant lettuce and beets about the same time.

Optimum germination temp for spinach is said to be about 50 degrees. It thrives in the cool Spring but can't take the heat. I was going through seeds today and starting some cool weather things, but put the spinach aside to grow later in a large container. I grow it to add to salads for fresh eating mostly, so I don't plant too much.

Thanks everyone for the feedback. I think I will start over. In addition to the seedlings being leggy, all of the soil in every cell is covered with white, furry mold. I got this seed starting mix at Ace's Hardware for $1 a bag because it was completely dried out. It was quite a job wetting it but I did it thinking I was saving money. I'm sure that the soil was too wet, at least some of it probably was. I stopped watering trying to dry everything out enough to get rid of the mold but its not helping. It doesn't seem to be bothering the seedlings, yet anyway, but its bothering me. So, I will get some good starting mix and begin again.

As far as why I was starting spinach inside, I was just trying to get a jump on things, especially since I don't have my new garden beds moved yet. I am working on the new garden but it's taking longer than I expected. Since I have only about 110 square feet of raised beds in total, I am trying to maximize the yields from the space I have, another reason I started indoors. However, it will all work out. I LOVE spinach and am planning on freezing as much as I can before it gets too hot.

Canokie, If you love spinach, be sure to raise it again in the fall. I have a nice little fallplanted patch under a simple coldframe that I have picked on all winter and it's still doing good.

Sometimes white mold just happens. Be sure you aren't keeping the growing medium too wet and be sure you have good air flow in the area where you're starting seeds. I keep a ceiling fan on 24/7 in my seed-starting room, open the windows during the day as needed to keep the room cool and to have good air flow, and will put a portable oscillating fan in there sometimes to ensure the seedlings are getting enough air to have air movement.

My soil temps in my garden are warm enough now to germinate spinach seed in a week to ten days, so I wouldn't be starting any of it inside at this point, but you're likely farther north and your soil temps may not be as warm as ours are here. I have started spinach seedlings inside before and they stalled after they were transplanted, so I don't do that any more.

We love spinach, but rarely freeze any because we eat all we raise about as fast as we can harvest it. It does better for me as a fall crop than a spring crop because we often get so hot so early here that the spinach season can end pretty abruptly. Or, in some cases, I just hurry up and harvest it because I want the space for warm-season crops.