It is that time of the year to dig out the plants. My ground soil is not all clay but enough to make it somewhat difficult to dig out the pots and cut the roots. The soil gets a bit hard around the pots and becomes lumpy. There may be a way to make it soft for easy dig out of pots in the future, such as:

- The easy will be to have sand brought in since it will be easy to dig out the pot and the sand is long lasting but it may not be as good for the roots that come out of the pot to graze for moisture and nutrients; or
- Peat moss bags (a lot of bags) is another solution ( cost is consideration and peat moss does not last long); or
- A load of wood chips is another option and sometimes available free.
- shredded leaves in fall give less than 1/5 of the volume when shredded (probably less when shredded on the lawn with lawnmower!).
 
What could be another better option in your opinion or any among those listed above (for an area 5'x25') ?

Gorgi
In addition to the holes that come standard with nursery type pot, I have made extra 6 holes on the pot vertical side some two inches from the bottom level. I cover the bottom holes with hard plastic from inside the pot so no roots go down through the bottom hole(s). I bury the pots 1/2 to 1/3 of its height most of the time.

Sorry, I did not address your original question about the soil texture.

I just noticed something last week related to this issue.
A narrow strip of my driveway is made up of stone dust (medium or fine crushed stone). I had placed some pots on it and the roots, fairly good amount of it, had penetrated the stone dust area. I found that it was easy to work with a shovel to extract the roots and pots from this medium of stone dust.
I am just thinking that adding good amount (?) of stone dust to the soil will make the soil less compact-able and easy to pull out the pots and cut the roots that had gone out to graze. My question here is if the stone dust will be detrimental as nutrient source for the fig plants or if it will be helpful in some (?) way.

Thanks George. I was thinking to limit th edepth to about 4" in th efuture and cover any hole(s) above this level with tape to avoid loss of moisture..