Seedlings dying after sprouting

[Bradveganpower]

Hey everyone, my seedlings have just turned yellow and stunted after I recently sowed them in a garden soil blending I got from the landscape shop. They have been watered well but they are dying, I don't know Mabey it's the ph or the soil has no nutrients.

[pepperhead212]

This is often due to damping off, caused by any of a number of fungi in the soil. This is why some people sterilize the soil by baking it, though I don't go that far! Does the soil have good drainage? This is often caused when the soil is too wet, and doesn't breathe. I always toss in a little extra perlite to my seed starting mix, for this reason.

[gumbo2176]

A word of advice. It would help if you added your location in your posts so you can get more specific advice that takes in your growing zone and conditions you are now facing trying to get things started.

[rainbowgardener]

Garden soil is not good for pots and especially not for seed starting. You need potting mix, which is lighter and fluffier and better draining.

But the seedlings you showed us don't look dying. They look a little yellowed and not thriving, especially the top left one in the bottom picture, but not dying. Did some of them actually die? The yellowed one with the crimped edges looks like over-watering, staying too wet. Better draining potting mix would help with that and then just being very careful about watering. Watering little seedlings is tricky. If they dry out they die, but they are also very sensitive to over watering.

Damping off is a fungal disease that little seedlings are very vulnerable to in conditions of too much moisture and not enough air circulation. But it has a very specific set of symptoms, that I'm not seeing. Damped off seedlings get their stems pinched in just above the soil level. Then they wilt. Eventually they end up lying flat on the soil, totally disconnected from the roots:



If yours didn't look like that, then they (fortunately!) are not damped off.

[imafan26]

Garden soil is mostly compost. While some people say that they get good results planting in pure compost, I do not. Compost and plastic pots is not a good combinations. Your soil looks too wet, which will encourage dampening off. I would replace the soil with a potting mix not garden soil. Make sure it has a lot of drainage material in it like perlite. Some organic potting mixes use very little drainage material. I mix my own mix so I like 40-50% perlite or cinder in the mix. Use a clean pot with lots of drainage holes and no saucer under it. Be careful not to over pot. If the pot is too deep or large, you need to be very careful watering. If the pot does not breathe or drain well it will retain water too long. I would start seedlings in smaller pots and transplant to the larger ones later.