Choices at a nursery will be limited - as opposed to growing your own from seed that is.

Off hand I can't think of any nursery-available variety that should be avoided. That doesn't mean they are the best available by any means, just that you'll only have a choice of the most common varieties.

Dave

I like to grow sweet peppers but something makes holes in my bells. :( I am more successful with sweet non-bells. Sweet Banana, Cubanelle, Italian Long. This year I am trying some new ones, so far the ones doing the best are Cute Stuff and Poblano.

as Digdirt says, choices will be a bit limited. But it's too late for starting from seed for this year. Start looking through some good seed supplier sites and make a wish list. Order when the next year's catalog is issued (usually December thereabouts) and start in Feb or so.

I'm with Trishcuit, start looking! I have 22 hardening off now that we started on Feb 11th. Our favorite "new" one actually came from Lowes last year. It's called "Mexibell". A bit smaller than an average bell, with just a hint of heat. We did purchase 4 this year because we couldn't find seeds. All the rest are bells we started. "Sweet heat"(Red), "Great stuff hybrid"(Red), "Golden Treasure"(Yellow)and "Super Heavy Weight Hybrid"(Yellow). Be sure to set your stakes or cages when you set the plants to prevent damaging the roots later. Our plants last year were 24" in diameter, and over 5' tall. It's taken us a few years to get the germination thing figured out, but at one time we had 74 growing in our bathroom. I think we finally got it right! :)

Knollwood garden center in Beavercreek has a nice variety of peppers this year. If you want to stay away from hot peppers, you might like to try Italian peppers for something with a little more flavor than a bell. Corno di toro and Marconi have good flavor but no heat. Banana peppers have a little heat and are very popular. In most cases green peppers are just immature peppers. If you're patient and let your peppers grow until they change color, they'll have a lot more flavor than most you can buy in a grocery store.

If you havent grown peppers before, you will find that the smaller longer peppers are easier to get to produce. My first year I got maybe 3-5 smallish peppers from each bell pepper plant, but dozens from the ancho/banana type peppers.

I generally prefer to stay away from hybrids simply because I like to save seeds (and money).

I wish I could find a Poblano, but it doesn't seem as if any of the garden centers (or nurseries) carry them. Lesson learned - buy seeds n grow my own next year.