What happened to my seedlings so far:
My tomato seedlings got very leggy before I even knew it and someone advised it's best to start over, plus I dropped them when I was moving them. So I started over but the second time around my soil was way too wet and didn't dry or drain at all (I didn't think I put that much water in them but I read to dampen the mix first then put the seed in, my previous starter mix was not this wet) - so they finally emerged really yellow and even though I was fully prepared with my plant light that I put over them as soon as they emerged, they're still looking rather leggy, not as much as before but still so.

My light is a Philips Plant Light, Agro-Light A19, 60 watts.

As for my pepper seedlings, they weren't emerging and I read the soil temp has to be really warm, more so than other seeds, for them to germinate so I put them close to my heater in my closet. When they did emerge, they also were leggy, but I didn't want to toss them so I read that I could bury the stem deeper, so I did. But not all of them because some of them had a lot of mold on the outside/inside of the pots so I decided to save only some of them.

Question:
So is it too late to start tomato and pepper seeds? I'm in New Castle county Delaware, zone 7. Some sources say this week or last week is my last frost date. And the guaranteed last frost date according to the gov website is May 10th. So I could be around 7 weeks late to my estimation.

I could try to find transplants of the varieties I like but that would be more money after I bought seeds already this year. I have 17 varieties of tomatoes and 12 varieties of peppers. Ultimately, if it is too late I would try to do that, but I'm not sure if it's too late to start new tomato seeds or if the tomato seeds I have now will make it into healthy plants, three of them haven't germinated yet. My few pepper seedlings are looking fine but I'd like to plant all the varieties that I originally had.

What to do? Help, please!

"Leggy" isn't all that bad a deal. Tomatoes are root-growing fools when you bury them deep.

I'm in PA zone 6 and my tomatoes plants are short and I won't be planting them out until May 15 or so.

I think I'm going to start new seeds but still try and keep these guys going including my tomato seedlings. As a last resort I might consider getting transplants. I found sources for all the tomato varieties, but not all the pepper varieties I had picked out.

If I can avoid buying them, I'd like to, but I'm still concerned on how late it is to start seedlings. I'm wondering if it'll be really warm out and in the throws of spring and my plants will be itty bitty things behind on the growing season.

Even though I only got a few transplants last year (no seed starting) I was also a bit late.

How many lumens would I need for all these seedlings?

Theres a Metalux fixture for $18 that holds two T8 bulbs and I could get two T8 bulbs that are 1,400 lumens and 3000k or 1,275 lumens and 6500k.

There's also 4ft lights that I could actually get cheaper (fixture as low as $13 and 2 pack bulbs for less than $10 - those bulbs up to 2,900 lumens and 6500k), but I'm not sure about being able to dedicate 4 feet of horizontal space. But I know the light should be right over the seedlings so I might not have a choice??

How many bulbs do you think I need for the amount of seedlings I'm starting?

Sorry about all the technical specifics on the lights. I know that the higher kevlin the better for seedlings so if I could get a better idea on the amount of lumens I'd need and how many bulbs (considering that people say that should be right over the seedlings) then I think I could know what's best to choose.

Thanx for the encouragement! I'm going out today to buy a better light and start seeds today but I'm going to keep the ones I've got going and see how they do. I'm sure I need to re-pot some of them, they sure are leggy - for today they'll get some afternoon sun and hopefully turn into strong plants :)

Cazy weather btw, it rained buckets for two days, my bed's a mud pit! Now it's sunny :)

And I hear you on the cheerleader support! It's definitely nice to have things already flourishing early. I still might pick up some transplants and who knows I might have too many plants afterwards. I'll keep my fingers crossed, the seed starting has proven to be a bit tricky for me - both the lighting and the timing of it all.
It's funny a lot of people say mid or late April for my area so I was surprised to read May 10th on the Del gov website. A lady I found who ships tomato transplants (heirloomtomatoplants dot com) says she has a lot of customers in Del and doesn't ship until Mid May so, yeah, I'm making my way up the learning curve.

I hope your plants do well this year!