Hi.

I would redirect you to Bill Muzychko's planting system. You will find it at the "growin tips" section of figs4fun.com website.

Here is a direct link showing his potting technique (self-watering pots), how to build the pots, etc.:

http://figs4fun.com/bills_figs.html


Also, here is a picture from that page which shows how he tarps over the root ball/soil line to prevent excess rain - since the pot is watered from the bottom up, there is no need for watering at the top:

Do you think a few days of excessive rain and water will hurt potted trees? I'm in the same boat I'm nj accept I'm at the beach for a few days, I'm not there to do anything. I set up a soaker hose and a timer so they could get a little water now we got 4.5 inches of rain yesterday and moretoday on top of the soaker hose.

From my experience, it depends on your definition of "excessive".  For me, our local "excessive rain" hasn't been a a killer, in fact, my trees seem to go totally ape over rainwater, they love it.   But I've never had a time when we've received more than 1"-2" per day for more than three days straight, so my trees have never seen more than 6" of water in a week.  And we've never had periods like this back-to-back without them drying out fully between rainstorms.  I also use a better draining mixture than some others use (about 25% perlite and 75% potting mix) so water passes through the pot fairly well and doesn't stay saturated.  This gives my roots room to breath.  Below is an example of the mix I use.

If we were to have many torrrential downpours for a week or two, I would probably try to find some way to shelter my fig trees, somehow, or move them indoors.  I wouldn't want them to have "wet feet" for more than two or three days.

Pic of my mix:

My soil is well draining and I have yet to have any problem with my trees- whether in pots or the self watering systems.