I think you'd probably have better success planting indoors. Peppers really like warmth and our nights are still pretty chilly for them. They tend to germinate more slowly than most seeds, and if it's too cool for them they can take forever to germinate. The other downside to starting them in the ground is that, at least where I am, insects find them delicious (snails, aphids, earwigs, grasshoppers, you name it) and tiny seedlings are not able to stand up to the attacks like a 6-8 week old plant can when planted out.

You can certainly try planting them directly, but I think you'd be much more successful starting them indoors, or as laura_al suggested, try both ways as an experiment.

The peppers I sowed outside took twice as long to grow and were always eaten.

Chilis are really slow to germinate even with heat. My soil in San Diego isn't warm enough yet.

I already planted a few outdoors, in a pot that had turmeric that some bird had stolen, and so it was empty. I have enough to try starting them indoors, and so I guess I will do that with the rest of them. Everyone on the chili forum seems to starts theirs inside, unless they are in Arizona or Texas or a hot part of California.

Thanks for the advice!

BTW, I never plant them in the ground outdoors, to avoid pests and also because my soil is bad - i.e., it does not drain. Also, I keep the pots close to the patio door so that I can access the chilies easily when I need them. Last year I installed an outdoor light so that I can see the plants easily in the dark months Nov-Feb. I do not have problems with pests when I grow the chilies in pots, and I have the pots on stands so that I do not have to bend over to get the chilies.

I have a friend who grows her chilies in pots, and she has a problem with RATS eating the plants. Gardeners definitely need to be optimists!

I do not have a problem with rats - the main pests I have are slugs or snails when I plant in the ground, and I have not seen any of those lately.

I did buy a 36 pod seed starter at HD to start my chili seeds, and I planted 16 pods with Chocolate Habanero seeds, 8 with Tobago Habanero seeds (supposed to taste like Habanero but much less heat), 3 with jalapeño, 3 with Anaheim, 3 with Marzano tomato, and 3 with some kind of yellow tomato. I don't know whether it was necessary to start the tomato seeds this way, but I had the seeds and the space, and so I decided to try it anyway. I've had reasonable luck planting tomato seeds in the pots outdoors, and so I don't think tomatoes need to be started indoors.

I'll have to ask at the chili forum about growing Tobago Habanero chilies, as it appears that they require constant heat for growing. Unfortunately, these were also the seeds that I put in the one pot outdoors, and so I doubt they will sprout. I have a few of these seeds left, but only about six.

Update on my chili plants:

Chocolate Habanero - this is two plants in one pot - I should have separated them when they were tiny, but I did not know that both would grow so well.Tobago chilies (red), which are pretty but have no flavor or heat. I keep them as ornamental plants.
Chocolate Habanero plants with Tobago and Cayenne in the background.

I'm posting this to show how long it took from planting the seeds to getting mature plants - about eight months, which is a bit longer than I expected. It did take the seeds about a month to sprout, however, and I will take that into consideration when I plant more.

When I was growing peppers I would start them indoors in Jan-Feb depending on what germination was like for the variety. The habenero types take forever to really get going and I tended to have better yeilds the second season than the first if I overwintered them. Even starting early doesn't give you enough time on some varieties and they need a second year.