It looks to me like maybe you need to plant a little deeper. Could be your yellow brandywine is potato-leaved? Good luck with your seedlings--it's always a challenge.

The advice I always see on here is to keep the lights on the tomato plants for 18 hours a day. I am not sure what the requirements are for other veggies though.

I am a gardening newbie too (successfully grew tomatoes last year for the first time) and its fun to start learning how to grow from seed isn't it?

The only problems I noticed is that my tomatoes and peppers are a little leggy (not sure why?) and they both have dark purple stems. I researched and seen the purple stems/leaves are okay on tomatoes but does anyone know about peppers?

Not nearly enough time under the lights - many use 24 hours but 16-18 is minimum recommendation - and the purple stems are common just as with tomatoes and is cool temps and phos uptake related. Disappears when planted to the garden.

Your tomatoes should have been planted much deeper for best results and they are awfully small for such a big container so they can turn leggy too. Standard progression is from seedling tray to deep in a cell pack and then to the large containers.

Some skip that interim cell pack stage by transplant them deep to a cup only half filled then add more soil as they grow. Check out the How to Grow Tomatoes from seed FAQ here for pics.

Dave

Thanks for the advice everyone! I will keep this in mind when transplanting the rest of my tomatoes and peppers.

So if I understand you right Dave, I can still use the 18oz cups, just only fill them halfway with potting mix and add more as the plants grow??

Also, I seem to have a problem with my recently transplanted tomatoes. The stems and leaves are starting to curl under/down on the majority of the plants. I believe they have probably doubled in size since I posted the last pics. Otherwise they are still nice and green and healthy looking. I have tried to increase the lighting for them to 14-16 hours and will begin the hardening off process Sunday. I would like to be able to move them out to my cold frame 24/7 by Thursday or Friday. I'm just trying to figure out why they are curling down. Any ideas?

Thanks!

the purple is often causes by chilly soil,, also the plants need 16hr of light, and 8 hrs dark .. not providing the dark will also cause purple growth , but it sounds more likely to be cold soil .. the plant has trouble taking up phosphorous if the soil remains below a certain temperature.