Lee Reich's Fig Rooting Method

There are many methods. The bottom line is maintaining a moisture/air balance in the root zone. If you can do that, the ingredients do not matter.

Tim
I tried this, not this year but last year. I was also concerned about seeing root growth so I used an old clear plastic punch bowl. I drilled holes in it and wrapped foil around the outside. The difficult part was timing the transplanting. Wait too long and the roots grow together towards the center. Transplant to early not enough roots. The punch bowl did work. I was able to see roots. This ran better than 50% on transplants and was low maintenance.

Tim/Charles,

Once you have roots, you can remove the reservoir and fill in with the same growing mix.  At the end of one season, the roots will be strong enough to untangle.  Most of the roots that grow will need to be pruned anyway so they will fit into a new container.

~james

Charles,

The advantage of clay containers is they are porous.  When you fill the reservoir, the water leaches into the growing medium in the larger container.  I know some people use clay because the porous nature provides an indicator (color change) as to when the pot is drying out.

~james

James
You are probably spot on. I probably did not wait long enough before I transplanted. I used the plastic punch bowl as the outside container and an unglazed clay pot as the water vessel. This did allow me to see the roots and I probably jumped the gun on tranplanting them.