I'm sure there are numerous locally owned and operated nurseries in your location. They tend to carry a wider assortment of varieties than your Big-Box stores. I'm seeing more heirlooms appearing in the nursery vegetable sections as well. Heirloom tomatoes are my personal favorites but for a newer gardener like yourself (my assumption) I would suggest one of the hybrid varieties you will find at your local nursery. They will usually be a variety that will perform well for your location and have consistent results.

You may wish to ask your question on one of the veggie forums for more info.

FataMorgana

For the free buckets, check some restaurants and sandwhich shops(like subway).
They use a lot of pickles and other stuff that come in 5gal buckets.

For the free buckets, I went to the bakery sections of some of our supermarkets and asked if they had any empty icing buckets. Usually they'd tell me when to come and get them prior to their trash dump. Another, nice thing about them is that they usually clean them very well before putting them in the trash so you have clean buckets with no lingering oders.

Our local(small)grocer has started selling cleaned icing buckets for a buck. I didn't need any but they were so nice I bought two 4gal ones with nice stout handles and lids that are fairly easy to snap on and off. Too nice to use for maters, LOL!