I think you have your answer: those seedlings look severely burnt. I would take them out of that medium ASAP and put them in some non-fertilized soil. That organic Jiffy stuff...organic soils tend to be so rich that they can even cause something akin to fertilizer burn. If you added a fertilizer layer, and have been watering with miracle grow (no matter how little a dose), they must be on fertilizer overload. Doesn't take much with plants of that size. Have no idea about the expert gardener potting soil. I would transfer them to some non-fertilized potting soil (NOT miracle grow potting soil). Before you transfer them, I would wash out the potting soil several times to try and remove some of the nutrients - these guys seem overloaded, and could do with just some basic growing medium. If you do that now, they should be able to rebound somewhat in 2.5 weeks.

zaxsta, thank you for your reply! I was afraid of that but now that I have another opinion, I know that is what I need to do. I had no idea the organic stuff was that rich, maybe the combination of the two was just too much.

thank you again, happy gardening!
Jaime

I agree, I don't fert at all until nearly plant-out time and they do just fine...I think you overfed them.

Hi Jaime,

Don't you just hate it when an idea that sounds good goes horribly wrong? I've had a few of those in my time too.

I suggest that you use a soiless mix. The "potting soil" mixes are too heavy. The soiless types will be lighter, give better oxygen to the roots, and drain better so that the effects of the excess fertilizer can be minimized as much as possible.

Bets

kterlep and bets... thank you for responding.

bets, I was thinking oh boy! I'm going to be so far ahead of the game this year and that's what I get for thinking... haha. It seems I've had lots of good ideas that have gone horribly wrong in my lifetime.. oh well. Have to keep trying though, don't we? Wasn't it something like Thomas Edison saying "and on the 10,000th try, there was light"

off to transplant... too bad the moon is in Aries today!! another strike! oh well, gotta try.

thanks all!

I agree. It's the soil. You are using a potting mix which is already heavily fertilized and meant for mature plants. So your seedlings are experiencing root burns. At this rate, I would suggest you also start a second batch of seeds in soilless mixes, case transplanting your plants don't work out.

I also used peat pots before with no problems about it being too rich for the plants. I won't be using them any more because they tend to decompose before the plants are mature enough to go outside. Too much mold for me.

(NOT miracle grow potting soil)

MG potting soil would be fine if amended. 4/1/1 or 4/2/1 MG/perlite/sand. Jiffy is very poor soil. Someone did a comparison with both and the MG plants are almost twice as big. I can't find the thread. Maybe the author will chime in.

You have definitely burnt the roots. rinse all the soil off and re-pot with fresh soil.

I use Jiffy Seed Starting mix every year and have never had poor results. I pot into peat pots from 6-packs or 9-packs and then they go out into the coldframe. I'm thinking mold must be due to lack of air movement. I would move them all to a sunny south window and see if they could be salvaged.
-Randy

Found the thread and it's quite obvious MG is better than jiffy.

Here is a link that might be useful: Seed starting mix comparison (pics)

I used soiless mix for most of mine and they looked like your pics 4 to 6 days after planting the seeds. I ran out of soiless mix for my last 24 cells and used Green Earth "Potting Mix" for the rest. This product was absolute garbage. Only two seeds sprouted, and they don't look very good compared to the rest. The other seeds all appear to have rotted, and I was careful not to let the "mix" get overly moist. Last time I will make that mistake, but home depot ran out of my regular soiless mix.