It won't shock your plant to take cuttings, though I do understand your reluctance! But the mama plant will be ok, maybe even benefit from some pruning. A roughly 5" or 6" cutting would be fine, you just cut right where above where a set of leaves ends, then on the cutting you need to strip a few sets if leaves from the bottom, maybe two or three, whereas you may only need one bare node to plant it soil. With hydroculture, you need a fairly long bare part of the stem to keep the cutting anchored in the aggregate. You don't really want a long leafy part above the top level of the aggregate, that is too much for the new roots that will be growing to maintain. Once the cutting gets rooted, it will concentrate on growing. If you put the cuttings in a glass of water to let them get started developing some roots, that helps. And when you do plant them in the clay aggregate, you keep the water level a little higher at first to help them to not dry out until they have really rooted well. It was pretty easy with my carnosa I just did last month. The first week or so, some of the leaves were too soft, I could tell they were not getting enough water, but after raising the water level a little more, everything is fine. I just have to keep an eye on it, cause once the roots are enough to support the plant, the water level will not need to be so high, and could possibly do more harm than good. I will look for a few hydroculture links for you, the lady in canada grows all of her hoyas this way, and she is very helpful.

Glad to hear that your yardlongs are doing well, Dennninmi. It sure is a good year for them in our neck of the woods. What variety(s) did you grow? While I am a big fan of yardlongs, I wouldn't go so far as to say that I prefer them to P. vulgaris snaps. Both have their distinctive flavors & textures, but I still prefer 'green beans' as a vegetable side dish. Normally, those snaps would be bearing early, followed by the yardlongs. But this year, the yardlongs started at the end of July, and I have yet to pick a snap. Furthermore, given frequent deep irrigation (a trick I learned during the flooding of 2010), the pod quality has been outstanding, and the plants are loaded. Isn't bean diversity a wonderful thing? ;-)

CLKW, you can make your own danged matzah balls! Texas is a big place, so I don't know if this is hundreds of miles away from you, but they had Kenny & Ziggy's in Houston on TV. E-mail me if you need a recipe. I think you really need to research more on the manufacturers' websites. Read through the operating manuals and get to know the appliances before you make a decision. The portable unit Dan linked looks like a a good unit. When I landed here induction wasn't very popular in the U.S. so I wanted to try it and got the cheapest one I could get on Amazon (Mr. Induction). It was enough to convince me. Commercial units like Dan's have different kinds of controllers than home units do. This one has thermostatic control, whereas home units have levels numbered from 1-9 (some with half stops). Cooktek (also commercial) has 1-100. Zoneless, as has been said, is also different, though the controllers are similar. I forgot to answer up topic about the self-import. If you do that, talk to your insurance first about it not being UL listed and get a letter for your file (kept at your agent's office) that says it's okay with the company. Talk to your electrician about wiring. And talk to your local servicemen. I wouldn't go with the De Dietrich. People were self importing these all over the place a couple of years ago, but when things went wrong they had orphan appliances. Instead, if you find an AEG, for instance, that you like, talk to the local Electrolux service and see if they'll take care of you. There likely won't be a warranty, but if you need a fix make sure someone can fix it. And know that the timers won't work right because they use the frequency of the electricity to mark time and they're different here and there. My serviceman said to just make a conversion chart. Re steamers, the in counter is more like a using a bamboo steamer in a wok. The combi-steam oven is an oven which also has steam. Very different. The steam is the same, but the mode of cooking is different. You'd have to ask someone more familiar than I with the in counter steamer, but I'm not sure all leftovers will fit. They'd have to be shaped correctly. Plus, people have said that you can just put a plate of dinner for a straggler in the combi-steam to refresh, which you can't in a counter steamer. It's not a bad appliance--just be aware of what the different ones do and don't do. You can't stack three different brands of ovens three high. I think you're getting a little star struck. Okay, for getting a crisp crust on bread in a normal, electric oven, use a pan of water. For steaming vegetables, use a steamer basket in a pan of water on the stove. I suppose you could use the oven, but getting it right would be hard. You can also use a plastic steamer basket in a microwave, in a corningware pot of water, or a bamboo steamer basket in a wok of water. There are other ways too. In a Gagg combi-steam, put in perforated pan in oven. Oh! You might want to look into the KitchenAid Steam Assist oven. That's a full sized oven with some steam. Not as fancy, not as expensive, but a full sized oven with a trick up its sleeve. I don't understand this sentence: Can I get steam oven results by sticking a pan of water in the combi oven and using microwave and oven to cook my leftovers? Have you tried that? I haven't tried any of it because they're just finishing my kitchen now. The combi- doesn't need a pan of water, so I think there's a typo somewhere. I haven't used the pan of water with leftovers. If it's just for myself, I'm more likely to zap it if I want it hot (and often would rather have cold). If it's for more, I'll redecorate it and put it in the oven. If you want more info on reheating and refreshing with the combi-steam, search on Gizmonike. Re prices, I don't think the Gaggenau convection oven is all that much different from the Miele, especially since you're already at the top of the scale. The Gaggenau combi-steam is more double the currently available Miele steam oven because the latter is steam only. For the same price as the latter, you could get the KA. I don't know much about the KA, but it's an oven with some steam, not a steam appliance. You'd have to find out more, but I don't think you can just put stuff like veg or rice in to steam only. But I don't think you can probably stack it with the Miele either. A lot of it depends on what you want to do and how you want to do it. It's very hard to know when you're not all that used to cooking well. It'll be more fun and easier in your new kitchen, but maybe you should start trying these things now. Put a custard cup or ramkin or whatever you have with water in your oven and see what happens. Steam some stuff on the stove. Etc. Fancy tools make life easier, but everything you do is much easier when you know the basics behind them. In school we had to calculate cube roots and natural logs even though we had calculators and there were tables in the back of the math book. Same with kitchen tools, before you use a food processor, learn to use a knife. Before you use a dough hook, learn to knead. Before you use a steamer, learn to steam on the stove. That way you'll learn what things are supposed to look and feel and taste and sound like, and won't be relying on machines to tell you what to eat.

I know there are veggies that do o.k. in at least partial shade. I didn't know about asparagus. I can't do super hot peppers, but I have cayenne's and I do know that bell peppers like some shade in the summer. I want so much to do some bonchi - bonsai chili peppers. I'm not even crazy about tomatoes, but I do like summer squash and zucchini, and I can't grow those here without at least 6 hours of direct sun. I'm trying a yellow straightneck squash in a pot just to see how it will do. I can already see that my Early Girl tomato is stretching, not compact like it should be, and it's in the sunniest spot in the courtyard. You know, for years all I grew was flowers. I studied greenhouse production in college because I wanted to grow flowers. I've sort of made a study out of edible ornamentals. I was complaining when I moved here that I didn't have enough shade for my tropicals, which is still true, because I only have morning shade or afternoon shade, no shade in the middle of the day when it's hottest. Now I'm complaining that I don't have enough sun. I guess as a southern girl, a garden without tomatoes and squash is not a garden at all. Well, I'll see how things go the next couple of months. Maybe if I can squeeze a 4'x4' square out of the middle of the courtyard, I can do a few tomatotes and squash.