Granted, that is in California, but even with our crazy drought, the figs grow like mad. 
Planted on Feb 04, today is June 23. The soil is sandy with some compost, water about once a week, full sun. The ground cover is the melons from the seeds bought at a farmer’s market (round yellow with dark stripes). Most of the figs have figlets.
The tallest is about 4.5 ft tall.
I am planning to separate them all when dormant.
That was basically an experiment to see if the cups survive. The figs in the pots planted at the same time are about 1 ft tall.

Wow, that looks great, definitely going to be mission impossible to get to the middle of that mini orchard you got growing there...dont squish the melons :)

Good job . Figs and melons look great.

Thanks, guys!
Needless to say, I have not expected this jungle. I planted the cuttings 1.5 ft apart thinking about 50% survival rate and about 3 ft growth by the Fall. Only 2 total gave up and that was my fault, I tried to baby them too much.
The figs are some wild beasts and want to take over the world asap!

Btw, about the Black Madeira being a crappy grower. It is tallest on the right side, above “n” in “June”.
It also has one of the thickest stems. 

wow
beautiful plants. very healthy!

What a great idea! The plants look wonderful. I'd like to do something like that with my front yard. If it's okay to ask, where did you get your rocks? If it's "Don't ask. Don't tell." I'll understand. 

I would be happy to tell you but I do not know myself. The rocks were around a tree that is no longer with us when we moved into the house. 
I love them too! They add some character and keep the moisture in the soil. The figs really liked them when they were small (grew better).

Wow Igor, that little fig forest has doubled in size since my visit last month. 

Igor blessed me with a few new figs trees and I had an opportunity to  visit  him.   No sooner had I parked at the curb and I spotted this little forest.   When Igor said he just tossed some sticks in the ground and covered, I was floored.    Couldn’t help but think all this rooting science/technique is surely a bunch of hooey, ha, ha!

What Igor didn’t mention is that, this little garden was not long ago home to a giant pine tree.  He had it cut down and ground the stump down well below surface.  I’m wondering now if some of that mulch is the old pine grindings and maybe conducive to fig propagation?

Nice job Igor!  The babies you favored me with love San Diego.   Thanks again.

Hi greenfig,
Nice results ! Especially for the Black Madeira !
Now, tell the dog of your neighbor to go fertilize on another corner of the garden LOL .

I had a visitor today!
I am not the only one who enjoys a fig company :)

Your little fig forest looks wonderful.

So how exactly did you do it Igor? I am all for planting as small as possible, small hole, less water to get established, fewer container plants to water through the summer...

It would be awesome if I could tell you that I had a grandiose plan to cut down a 100 year old tree and plant my the most precious figs in the ground making sure they are all protected and watered nicely with a fertilizer once a week :) 
Alas, it is all the other way around and happened quite spontaneously. 

I had a nice looking deodara growing in front of the house for many-many years until this stupid drought happened and it slowly started to die, a branch after a branch. At some point we got afraid that the tree would fall and slice the house in half and decided to bite a bullet and cut it down. It took 2 days and mucho dineros to get the job done :(
At the end I obtained a vacant tiny round piece of land in a prime location! So, what would any of us do??? Plant the figs, of course  :D

I, basically, decided to plant whatever I had at that time and leave them alone without any mercy, exactly how they grow in the Nature (only watered once in a while).
Some were just the sticks from the fridge, some where pre rooted in a paper towel, and some had roots from a coco box. 
That was February and the sun was gentle without much heat. You can check the temperature at that time in the zip 91105-7 but I can tell you that we had no frost this year.

After a month, you could not tell the difference between the cuttings. They all took, the ones that had roots already or were just the bare sticks. Out of all, very few (3 or so) died. I replaced them with others. I watered only around each cutting just enough to have the moist soil at the 2 inch depth, no need to soak. The soil under the rocks was always moist and I almost never watered there. The rocks also provided some extra heat through the night and was great to have as a help.

I think it was the best decision I made this year! I did not have to worry about the overwatering and gnats (the natural predators and the wind took care of that). The growth rate difference between the in-ground and in-pot trees is about 4 times. They really love the heat and sun now, after establishing. 

I wouldn’t do it now since every day is above 100F but back then it was the perfect timing. 

At the end of March I planted the melons, 2 seeds per hole, just for kicks. They also all took! 
Now I hope to taste them all when the time comes :)

These days I water the figs with a hose manually about once per week. The water evaporation is quite low since the ground is covered with melon leaves densely.
The soil was brought by the tree cutting guys and had a lot of compost in it. It is covering the ground stump. 

If you want to do this elsewhere, I would probably suggest to pre root the cuttings a little, at least to see 1/2 to 1 inch long roots. This would give you a higher confidence that the cuttings are viable since sometimes they do not root or root very slowly. They would grow more evenly that way also.

Outstanding Igor. Thanks for sharing.

Melons are ripe! Smallish because too many of them but tasty nevertheless :)

Igor,

What happened to the figs ?
I wouldn't be surprised to see pictures of some already bearing ripe fruit !

Francisco
Portugal

Francisco,

The figs are not ready for a show time yet, they are not ripe.
A lot of green figlets but they need a few more weeks.
Since they were rooted only the past spring, they do not follow the proper timing.

Thanks for the pictures and the info!  I have a fig cutting that arrived from N&Y with a lot of roots.  I put it in a big plastic pot and planted bush beans around it.  I thought the living mulch and the possibility of extra nitrogen from the roots a good thing.  Last night we each had a serving of beans with bacon ends, onion, new potatoes and fresh bay leaves.  The fig seems content with its room mates.

Will you need to relocate any of the figs because of crowding?  Neat little melons.

I love beans too, maybe will try the next year.

Yes, I will have relocate all but 2 or 3. With the rate they are growing, I will need a machete to make sense next year.
That was my savior patch that turned out to be a haven, didn't plan for that :)

Nice job Igor! Those figs look very happy 

Good job. It seems the fig tree itself can take hot sun but the roots run shallow and need to be protected with mulch or what you have, a living mulch.