70 miles away is far. If it must be pots, your plants can be OK in pots. Most gardeners have a more or less permanent pot ghetto in any case! I would keep the pots in part shade whenever that is possible. If they have to be in full sun for awhile, do check them every morning - as you head off for work, for example, or when you get home, if you usually get home before dark. Plant in a mix of potting soil and bagged topsoil. This would be my personal preference for water conservation, even though potted plants generally don't want heavy topsoil. I think any pots that give your plants some room to grow without being the size of Kansas should be fine. Trays or water-catcher things under the pots may help save you some watering work. In zone 5, if you can't get everything into a permanent planting spot by October, use the holding bed idea but just drop the plants (in their pots), into the soil. Plants in pots are vulnerable to freezing. Some people are able to overwinter stuff in pots in an unheated garage but from back when I lived in z5 I know for a fact that, when it was -12 outside, it was -12 in my garage. That's too cold for most potted plants, even if they're hardy in the ground.

breezygirl, That's a great question for the factory. The CC installation instructions are TERRIBLE wit respect to the regulator and gas pressure and their role in the installation. I've also wondered about the role of the regulator in all of this because I assume the factory adjustments are made a certain gas pressure. Without the regulator attached (or with the regulator attached but adjusted to a different pressure) the gas pressure on the CC at home will be different from the gas pressure on the CC as adjusted at the factory. I don't know how sensitive the CC adjustments are to gas pressure -- they may not be sensitive at all or they may be sensitive depending on the gas pathway design in the CC. Perhaps more relevant to us is *how sensitive is the CC simmer setting made at the factory to a different gas pressure as used in the home*? Again, this may or may not be an issue, but I think you should call the factory about your installation without the regulator. There is some possibility this is a building code and safety issue as well... Thanks for your comment and please report back. Billy

I spent quite some time considering a Fretelli Onofri but decided against it ultimately. It is a really cool looking range, and has a lot of features for the money, but the max burner is only 12,000 BTU (11 on propane) and I just couldn't see paying the money to upgrade my range to something no more powerful than what I already had in my $500 GE. It's smallest burner is 3500 BTU, so I am guessing that it should easily get low enough to simmer satisfactorily. I'm not sure if these burners have low flame controls, but I think most do. With this you can adjust how low the flame goes with a screwdriver. Bluestar has it and it works great (That's what I bought). Download the owners manual from FO and see if it's mentioned.

Walmart and Michaels are the first that come to mind.