Do you start with seeds or do you buy already growing plants?

Closing on a house in May and would like to get back into gardening. Plan on raising bell peppers, jalepenos, and habeneros initially. Where is the best place to get these?

In West Houston near Cypress if it matters.

I get mine at Lowe's. I prefer their quality/selection over our local Home Depot. YMMV though. Plant quality usually depends entirely on the horticulturist on staff.

Depends.

I buy where I can get 4 or 6 packs. Lowes and HD had all singles, so I buy pretty much exclusively from Linseisen's Feed in Bellville. 4 packs for 1.98. Shipments arrive on Thursday and Friday. I have no idea why Lowes in Katy had all singles for tomatoes, but its too expensive that way in my opinion. This use to not be the case, but I guess people in the area don't buy more thna couple plants a time or something.

Anyway....tomatoes, bells, eggplants are best from buying plants. If you want to do seeds, then they need to be started like 8 weeks ago inside. For almost everything else, seeds directly.

[This message has been edited by BrazosDog02 (edited 4/10/2014 2:02p).]

If you come into Houston ever, make a stop at Buchanan's in the Heights. Great place, great variety, and very knowledgeable staff.

http://buchanansplants.com/

In San Antonio I've started buying my plants at Rainbow nursery. They have good quality plants and only carry varieties adapted to our area.

Houston Garden Center, cheap and easy.

they also produce pretty damn well.

Buchanan's is where I get my Ghost Chili and Trinidad Scorpions from, but a dude at work buys them. Im not quite willing to pay 9 bucks for a plant.

I just ordered 75 live plants from chiliplants.com for delivery next week. I'll let you know how it works out. Medium to very hot peppers of all types. I have all of the beds ready to go. Pequins, anchos, cayennes, habaneros, jalapenos, Indonesian, Jamaican, Serranos, Thai, Chinese, and more. I'm gonna make some salsas and have stir fries, some decorative peppers, and make chile oil out of others. Many usages. BTW, the Trinidad Scorpions are $4.25 each from that site.

[This message has been edited by Yuccadoo (edited 4/10/2014 2:52p).]

Interesting, Yuccado. Are those delivered to your door?

I like interesting heirloom varieties that are open pollinated (cue garden snob comments). Those are usually not found at your big box store.

Have bought from Baker Creek seeds with good success the past couple of years.

Baker Creek seeds

The smaller nurseries are the best IMO... Outdoor box stores like Home Depot are ok... Walmart plants suck. More diseased than a Lubbock sorority girl, allegedly.

Houston Garden Center on 290

Stridulent, yes, delivered to my door.

Never had a problem with Walmart plants. They all buy from the same bonnie or burpeee supplier. The problem is that the selection is often poor. Small specialty garden shops are usually a good place to get more variety and spend more per plant than needed unless its someplace like Rainbow Gardens that has some sort of reputation. If you go to somewhere like Cornelius you will pay more for a single plant than you will for a 9 pack at Rainbow. No clue why.

But Home Depot and walmart are fine as far as disease free. I find Home Depot to have abused plants that suffer through drought conditions until one of the garden lackies figures out to water. That's the case anywhere like Walmart and lowes and is the root cause of disease....stress.

One issue with HGC is they typically WAY over fertilize, and sometimes, trees usually, can get ground shock from the changing soil chemical conditions.

I have ordered from chileplants.com multiple times, good plants shipped right to your door.

I like the selection and quality at Lowes better than Home Depot. But the best selection of plants i've found for me were at Producers Coop so maybe you can check local coops or feed stores.

Arbor Gate in Tomball has a very good selection of vegetables with quite a few heirloom varieties. Lowe's is usually the best choice in CS though.

Feed store. Seed vs. started plant depends on the veg.