4798 Gray Rd Cincinnati OH 45232 Phone 513-541-8170

Specialty herb and vegetable plant supplier for the spring planting season with around 1700 varieties of vegetable and herb selections.

"Teach a person to fish and they're fed for life, teach them to garden and they can feed the whole neighborhood, and the more of us that can that the better it is for all of us." Al Funke 2009

Open Mid March to Mid November 

Summer Hours 2024
  9 am to 1 pm seven days a week

If you can swing it we always appreciate cash. When one only has 6 weeks in the spring to make 12 months of expenses every little bit helps! Thanks!

We are a seasonal business and selection is at peak during the prime planting season of early May.
Peak season 2024 saw 1700 varieties of herb and vegetable plants from every corner of the globe for our shoppers to pick from!
Heartfelt thanks to all those who shop with us :)
Even though our primary focus is the totally insane spring selection there's always something interesting happening at Funke's throughout the growing season.
If you'd like to keep up with what's happening here, have a variety request you'd like to see us carry, or have a "midnight garden question" check us out on facebook at the link below, give us a like, and message the page with your questions or requests.

Funke's facebook page

Pretty much wherever your tribe came from on the planet we have ethnic vegetable and herb plants from your ancestral homeland.
Truly a treasure trove for the foodie, the ethnic, the scientific, and of course, the urban and suburban gardener looking for great fresh gourmet veggies right from the backyard, deck, or patio for the summer grilling and cookout season.
Whether you're a balcony gardener, small to mid size backyard, or a full tilt farm we've got selections to fit your needs.
Our herb selection is also outstanding this year and sure to tickle the fancy of the chef and the herbalist alike with many gourmet selections as well as a very respectable selection of useful holistic and medicinal species.

This year there were right around 300 pepper varieties from Super hot to super sweet, and everything in between, including many exotic species from around the globe.
Our tomato selection also topped 300 varieties focusing heavily on sustainable heirloom varieties that can be regrown from saved seed.
If you're a small space gardener or just want fresh heirlooms off a pot on the deck be sure to check out the dwarf heirloom project varieties we have during the prim planting season.
Heirloom flavors, colors, and textures on compact plants perfect for patio pots. Yum!
If you're looking for super disease and blight resistant F1 hybrids we have those also.
All non-GMO and grown free of hard chemicals.
Although we are not "certified" organic, we practice organic techniques, and pride ourselves on the fact that our plants are safe to eat the day you take them home.

Al Funke

As promised last year the plant selection lists, Tomatoes, Peppers, Other veggies, Herbs and Flowers are now up!
You will find them on our Plant lists page.
We don't call it "insane" for nothing, check it out!

If you're a chili lover you'll LOVE shopping our insane selection!
If you're a "fire eater" you'll be pleased to know that we have about 30 million+ scoville varieties to choose from!

We start the seeds in January so you can buy plants at Funke's that will have pods ready by mid to late July in your home garden.

And of course, no sauce, salsa, salad, or big fat burger would be complete without tasty tomatoes.

With 300+ varieties to choose from this year you'll find an amazing selection of heirlooms, sauce varieties, salad cherries, burger slicers, and more than plenty to please the most serious foodie.

And it's not just peppers and tomatoes, our ethnic diversity selection spreads out across the cucumbers, squash, okra, melons, greens, sweet potatoes, salad greens, etc.and our herb selection is sure to tickle the fancy of the chef and herbalist alike!

With our huge selection of culinary, medicinal, and spiritual use herbs you'll see why professional Chefs, Herbalists, home gardeners, and market gardeners alike count on Funke's as their source for their herb garden starter plants.

We believe in staying close to nature and grow our plants here as naturally as possible. Our catch phase is "Just say no, to GMO."

And Yes, we really do grow all of our vegetable and herb plants here on site, no middle men, no poisons, no kidding.

Here again, we take pride in the fact that our plants are safe to eat the day you take them home.

Our service, selection, and prices will delight both the beginner and expert gardener alike. In most cases our plants are less expensive than the chain stores and way safer to handle being free of the hazmat growth regulators commonly used on chain store crops.

Have a favorite variety that you'd like us to carry? Just drop an email to grow (at) funkes.com or message our Facebook page which is exceptionally modern, lol... 
We like requests and feedback from our customers. YOU are why we're here! :)

Just a note to any who may wonder. I have intentionally left the site in the "homepagey" feel of the internet of the mid 90's.
A simpler time before hacking, tracking, profiling, spying and obsessive commercialism took over. In a nutshell, heirloom plants, heirloom website. :) Al

We really do take our devotion to preserving our heritage and the diversity of species quite seriously, if you really enjoy reconnecting with nature through gardening, and of course fresh gourmet groceries right from your own garden, we think you'll find Funke's a refreshing change from the "same, same, stuff, stuff" garden stores out there. :)

 

Here's a bunch of other fun garden stuff to poke through on our site.

Home About us Products Services Video Easy gardening Fun Stuff

Sign up for Funke's email Liberty for dummies

The Liberty for dummies page is a simple refresher for all of us Americans that have forgotten what "liberty" is really all about.
One will have to forgive the primitive shockwave flash graphics and rather monotonous midi music as it was produced in the early 2000's and the .swf format had small file sizes that played smoothly in the days when broadband was in it's infancy and many folks still had dial-up connections.
Personally I thought it was kinda cute but I grew up in a time when there three broadcast television channels that signed off at midnight with a test pattern.
This website was originally designed to run smoothly at 28k dial-up!

The concepts it presents are simple basic human liberty and even a kid can understand it. Some adults may be another story. :) It's well worth the watch. I hope you find it as refreshing/entertaining/enlightening as I. It was on the verge of extinction from the internet so I moved it here so that concept of "by the people, of the people, and for the people should not perish from the internet". It was then threatened when the .swf platform also disappeared from the internet since broadband had evolved to handle the huge data loads of far more detailed graphics so I converted it to .mp4 which will ensure it will still play well into the future.
My highest compliments to the artist that constructed it. Webmaster

The site is evolving. Rather than take it down for "maintenance" the way many do I decided to leave the old links from twenty years ago (or longer lol) below in place for posterity if nothing else. Eventually I'll move them into the history section where they belong.

Like life itself it's a work in progress. Al

 


  • Building a pond - A pictorial essay of the construction of the water feature in our front display. A good "how to" demonstration for those who'd like to get their feet wet :)
  • Poinsettias - We did at one time grow some of this finest poinsettias in the region. Consumer apathy and reluctance to pay for quality, and rising fuel costs forced us to stop growing them.
  • Virtual visit - This section needs to be moved to the history area of the site. I'll build a virtual vist page for the new Funke's when I get the chance. :) Al
  • Directions & Store hours - Simply put, How you get here from there :)
  • Links - gardening related links with site reviews
  • What's new? - New features and updates here on the site
  • Backissues - backissues of our popular gardening newsletter
  • Herbs! - Herbal information covering a broad range of topics relating to herbs Updated - 03/11/08
  • Testimonials - What Cincinnati's gardeners are saying about our shop and gardening newsletter :)

    • Help the little guys save the fees! Use cash!

    Want to do something to help the little guys keep their prices down for you the customer? STOP USING THE PLASTIC & START USING CASH. Credit cards do nothing but suck BILLIONS of $ away from the working class & small businesses every year. Who pays for the skymiles and rewards? Your merchant, that's who. Those rewards are taken electronically out of the merchant's portion of the sale when the card is scanned. Also cash can't be hacked by skimmers and data mining apps. It's far more likely these days to be robbed blind electronically than it is to ever be held up for your cash. Yes my friend, cash is actually safer to carry than plastic.

    God grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, but more importantly the COURAGE to change the things we can, and the WISDOM to know the difference.

    Serving the greater Cincinnati Garden Market for four generations since 1896

    We were at one time, perhaps the single most comprehensive selection of perennials, annuals, trees, shrubs and garden accessories in the region including tuned windchimes, garden furniture, tools, fertilizers and water gardening supplies. The unwillingness of garden consumers to buy plants in any significant numbers in anything less than perfect weather, and then only willing to pay what they did ten years ago while costs of operation skyrocketed forced us to shift focus to the herb and vegetable plant niche market and to promote the self sufficient organic method food production of our past, and target the "true" gardener as our primary customer. The one that regardless of weather events is going to plant the garden that feeds the family just like ours did those many many decades ago when I was a kid and our 1/4 acre garden fed 12 people.

    Our primary mission is now to provide the plants, materials, and knowledge necessary for our customers to take control of their own food supply and eat like royalty in the process!

    "Teach a person to fish and they're fed for life, teach them to garden and they can feed the whole neighborhood!" Al Funke 2009

    We look forward to a sustainable future of healthy and bountiful harvests.

     

    Located at 4798 Gray Rd. Cincinnati Ohio 45232

    Phone 513-541-8170

    Browse through our extensive site through any of the above areas. We hope you have as much fun here as we have putting it here for you!

    We pride ourselves on customer service and do our level best to be as "user friendly" as possible!