Seed starting soil is needed. Its also sterile and has no insects or diseases that can kill young seedlings. Suspect that they are being over watered, and lack sufficient light. If you do see yellowing leaves thats a sure sign of too wet soil. Potting soil might be fine for well established plants for outside, but you may also have very tiny fungus gnats in it that could infest every single plant indoors or out. The use of yellow sticky traps placed horizontally near the pots, as well as some careful observation is necessary. Do not use fertilizers for these young seedlings. Seed starting medium is made of things like shreaded coconut husks (coir) and a little perlite. I start seeds for many herbs and flowers indoors. Right now, I have over 150 plants growing from seeds, and have neary no losses once they are ready to be translanted outside. The fastest germination I had was with Brussels Sprout seeds. They took only two days to sprout and were over an inch tall in 3 days! Right now, all my petunias, oregano, impatiens, peppers, tomatoes, watermelon, and cantaloupe seeds are doing great under plant lights. I have the lights on a timer for about 18-20 hours per day. Plants do need a small amout of darkness time, but because plant lights are only low power substitutes for sun, they do need to be very close to the seedlings, like about 2-3 inches. My plant shelves are metal with 2'x4' shelves and use two 4 foot shop light fixtures with two lamps each fixture per shelf. They are attached with chains and are raised when the plant growth starts to touch them. In a tray of 32 pots of 2"x2" each will have single plant once they are at 2 inches tall. Natural Beginnings is a seed starting medium from Gardens Alive. Even though their prices are a bit high, I always prefer to use some of that medium with added Jiffy mix, a similar product, and any other sterile seed starting medium. These are all actually 'soilless'. Dill can reach a few feet tall and doesn't do as well indoors. The pots need drainage holes in the bottoms. All my seed staring has been very successful for well over 40 years now, and I will be picking peppers and tomatoes in early July, while everyone else still has only a few blossoms showing. I also use heat mats under my trays, and ove each with clear plastic dome lids. The lids get removed once the leaves touch them, then I also unplug the heat mats. If the mats are left on, they tend to dry the soil out very fast, so I shut them off and just grow by the room temperature after that. Before being planted outside, each tray is moved to my small glass greenhouse outside for about a week to 10 days, where the direct sun will 'harden them off'. This reduces translant stresses and gives the plants a lot of strength beforehand.

To Ohiofem, That's crazy that you've been growing tomatoes for twenty years and yet just five years you've been doing seeds! And by "new to gardening" I mean NEW to gardening. lol I liked the idea of starting from seed because you get more plants for the money, TONS of varieties to choose from, and, being a stay at home mom of an eight month old, it's been fun to take care of. :) As for heirloom versus hybrid, you ain't kiddin'. My Sungolds are the rock stars. They look awesome and are bigger than the rest. Yeah, they are also cherry tomatoes, but as others have said, a lot of times hybrids are that way-super growers. As for not as easy to grow, it's funny because yeah, my pepper and broccoli plants haven't scared me yet like the tomatoes have a few times. haha That's also good to hear that the problem isn't likely bacterial canker. I was just heartbroken thinking it might have been last night. Looked up the Tomato Girl company as a back up plan should my plants not make it. My local nursery has mostly hybrids and a few heirlooms, but none that I was really interested in. As for hardening off, I got some advice from a guy at the local nursery that my plants seemed to be too large for this stage, so I should start hardening off now to slow down their progress some. That way, he said, I wouldn't have to transplant to bigger pots within the next week or two before I plant them outside. He said then they wouldn't have outgrown the pots they're in now. To Suncitylinda, I did notice that having the fan on them helped bulk out their stems. They used to have pathetic thin stems when I first came back from vacation. See, my first year gardening I planted the seeds, then, having to go to Washington to visit family for two weeks, told my husband all the knowledge I'd learned, and then left the next day. I learned almost everything from reading online and reading forums like this, but, since it's my first year gardening, I had never put any of it into practice. lol Bless my husband's heart though, he tried his darndest to keep them alive, and they did pretty well, except they got leggy. That's what I fixed once I got back. The people at the nursery told me they were leggy, put a fan on them, and gosh darnit! It worked! :D As for sitting them outside, hahaha! Being in Utah, in a NORMAL winter(this one has been uncommonly warm), when I started these seeds there'd be some snow still in patches! Lucky you to be able to put them outside once they pot up. I'm jealous. ;) Also, thanks for the reminder about gardening is to DE-stress, not increase it. lol I know I can't be the only one who stresses about these kinds of things-I see posts like mine every day on this forum. We want our babies to grow up right, and lead productive lives, just like our real kids! ;) So thanks for all the advice ya'll and reminders to just relax. I gotta keep in mind what you said about they grow like weeds. I think maybe we do tend to over worry. I know my seedlings seem to pop back real nice and quick after a problem may arise. :) To Bobby, About the planting more than you need-I know. I'm so glad I assumed for some not germinating, and some didn't. And even still, I have three of each that popped up, so even if one died or didn't look great, I should still be fine with my planting adventures. ^_^ So, after listening to everyone, I've decided to not freak that it's bacterial canker(thank you Ohiofem!), chill and take whatever happens, and just in case my problems arose out of wind burn(as a pic I saw does look a bit similar), am hardening off my plants in our 3 sided carport, so no serious breezes bother it yet(thanks both of those to Suncitylinda!). I want ya'll experts to know. Being a newbie to a field that one could never in a LIFETIME master, I'm so grateful ya'll take the time to help people like me. I know you must get tired of all us new to growing asking you so many questions about possible diseases, how to plant, what varieties are good, but I know, at least for me, knowing ya'll are willing to answer our questions definitely keeps me going. It's so easy to get discouraged, worry you don't know what you're doing, so it's nice to have ya'll telling us we're doing alright and keep it up. :) Hopefully that doesn't sound too cheesy, 'cause I mean it.

Not sure about the top picture, in which I don't even see a first set of leaves on the plant, but in the bottom picture I see what I call "bowed head". Doesn't look like damping off. Damping off is rotting at the base of the stem, so the whole plant falls over. Also doesn't look like poor lighting, in which a leggy plant with big leaves would start to tilt. Looks more like over-watering stress. Once the plants come up, you want the roots to head south, and they won't do that if the top of the soil is always wet. The soil does really look moist in these later pictures. Although your plants don't look that leggy, they also are pretty young, so they may just not have had a chance to get leggy yet, with poor lighting. It's good you now have decent lights. Yes, be careful about heat. Do you know the soil temperature? It's best at 70-75F. Overheating would be a major stressor.

That's a good point. "Spinach" means LOTS of things. Many different varieties of spinach, and things that are *called* spinach that aren't really spinach, but rather just a spinach-like green. Those different kinds of "spinach" may thrive in VERY different conditions. Armenian cucumbers taste like cucumbers, but they're really melons. So what gives? I guess the simple way to look at it is that in a simple seed selection, that you might find at the supermarket, what's in the seeds is pretty much what's on the shelves. You have to dig a little to find the more unconventional varieties. Where do you learn about unconventional varieties and vegetable gardening techniques? One place is HERE. After years of looking at this forum, I've learned lots of new things, including amazing plant varieties that I had no clue existed. To the extent you have local gardening clubs, that would be another excellent source of info. A commonly neglected source of information is the gardener next door, who may have been doing vegetable gardening for years, with precisely the same weather conditions and precisely the kind of soil that you're faced with. Those "lessons learned" are priceless.