Looks very much like a soil issue. Something toxic...that could be attributed to many things... looks like fertilizer burn. Not saying that is it but what would be the outcome if an overdose of fertilizer is spread all over the soil, on top, and not tilled in or double-dug well in advance of planting... Lets back up a couple months...(because your raised bed soil looks very much just like your surrounding yard soil)...and the fact that this in not your first garden season... A month or so before planting, add your amendments of choice, double dig them in and rake and pull any sneaky weeds...this will evenly distribute additives and airates your soil....nice and fluffy...give it a good wet drink and rake smooth. Avoid stepping and compacting. I then cover my beds with a weed barrier that allows rain water in, not plastic. That just preps my beds for a good planting week...plants that like cooler weather go in often a month ahead of others like peppers, cukes, tomatoes... I mulch a week or two after everyone has settled in. I don't think it is the peat pots. You've got others in plastic and various suppliers. Bonnie, etc. I avoid them like others...but did purchase a bonnie this year...at least it has a plastic sleeve...and i pulled a bit of the peat away to inspect the roots before buying...just takes one inattentive employee assigned to watering to stress nursery starts by giving barely a sprinkle and not a soaking...so your plants could have been stressed before you even brought them home...(why many of us start our own plants and can only blame ourselves for failure and even then can have unexplained disasters but it does not cost money, just time and effort) A good soil analysis with some of your leaf matter included will solve any mysterious fungal issue...remove your plants...they look not so good by the dried up roots...may recover in a deep tray of pro mix? Not so sure...but i would double dig your bed...with a spade, one end to the other, flip your soil and water it soaking wet...while you wait for test results. Then add what is needed... So sorry, but their is still hope and plenty of time for a good growing season...

This is all part of the "kiss" thingie. I have always soaked plants for up to two weeks before planting because it simply wasn't possible for me to plant them at my farm when I received them at home. What I always did, however is to make sure the water was changed every day or two to keep the pathogens out. I never used bleach, peroxide, etc. Just nice clean water. Also, I always kept them outdoors in the shade.

Carolyn: Thanks for responding. I'd love it if you could figure out what's going on. I plan to see if my county extension can help, too, but I can't get to a phone during their hours for a few more days yet. I don't have a measurement for the humidity, unfortunately. I can say that in my house, a drink with ice develops condensation, my hair does not get staticy easily, and when the outside temp is around 20 or lower, my double-hung windows have condensation in a one-inch strip just above the joint between upper and lower windows. Until this week, I had the grow light sitting on a milk crate, so the light was hitting the plants from straight-on, sunset style. I finally got my ceiling beams located and some hardware installed and the light has been pointing down for about 4 days. It was when I moved things around in order to hang the light that I saw the white patches and how bad the aphids were in some spots. I've been spraying with soapy water so much now, the humidity may have increased! (Only one tomato had a lot of aphids, but I'm spraying that guy and all the non-tomato plants twice a day now) Thanks a lot for any help you can give, zeke

Well, using overstatements is one way to try to persuade others to follow your particular view, but it does leave you open to being dismissed outright. Gardengal48, congratulations on your success growing fruiting plants. May that continue to get better and better for you. But....12 hours soaking in water has yet to kill any of the many, many plants that I have been soaking in nutrient-rich water prior to planting or repotting. My goal was not just to get the roots soaking wet, because that would get done pretty quickly. Instead, I want the whole plant to get fueled up with the nutrients from head to toe. Some get soaked only a few hours, and some didn't get pulled out to plant until 3 or (gasp!) 4 days later when I got to it. They have been coming out of the container with thickened happy roots. No rotting. No stench. No withering away. A guy donated a bucket full of 4 ft tall pomegranate suckers clipped in Winter, and I babysat them for more than a month for another guy who would in early Spring cut them to length, dip one end in Dip-N-Grow, and plant the cuttings to get them to root both in pots and in his field. With no room to refrigerate those, I just put some beneficial nutrients in a few inches of water in that 5 gallon paint pail packed with pom suckers and parked it in indirect light. Well, they not only survived the long term dunking, they eventually started to leaf out on top with healthy new leaves and shoots. When the Winter cold became less of a threat, the other guy picked up the pail of healthy suckers, clipped off the bottom few inches that got waterlogged ,clipped off the leafed out top,, and used the remainder of the suckers for rooting. If a "desert" plant like a pomegranate could make it so well while standing in this 'ankle-deep' water, then I would say that I will do the same exact thing next time this pom situation comes up. I won't buy a tall fridge to put them in. Remember the grade school experiment putting a stalk of celery in a glass filled with water that had been dyed with red food coloring, and the stalk gradually wicked up the red water towards the stalk top. Well, I want many of my plants to wick up lots of fertilized fluid all the way up prior to planting/repotting. I sure would not soak succulents like cacti in water like that, or magnolia trees, but it is a non-issue for many fruiting plants. Otherwise, the first time that rainy weather keeps fruit tree roots soggy wet in 100% soggy mud, they would die from what you described as the roots being deprived of oxygen for 12-48 hours. Sometimes soggy, muddy, rainy weather lasts for much longer than that, and somehow the fruit trees don't croak. Maybe you could rephrase the time period to fit the field evidence. No offense intended, Thank you for sharing from your experience. Don't stop.