After quite a bit of experimentation, last year I settled on a very simple (but effective) method of propagating figs.  I take hardwood cuttings and sink them about eight inches into damp stump dirt in a pot, put the pot on a heating pad, and ignore it for a few weeks until I need the heating pad for something else.  I water occasionally during those heating-pad weeks and during the subsequent weeks, keeping the soil at the moisture level appropriate for seed-starting (or just a hair drier), and put the pots in a sunny spot once the leaves begin to push out of the buds.  By the end of the summer, the cuttings are extraordinarily well rooted and are ready to go into the ground.

I treated the Brown Turkey cuttings from Daddy to last year's methodology, and also potted up the rooted shoot we teased away from the base of his mature fig bush.  The latter will go into the ground soon after our frost-free date, and I'm thinking of putting it on the west side of our wood-stove alcove so the fig will enjoy lots of winter sun and heat while helping shield the trailer from summer sun.  I'll probably keep one of the rooted cuttings as well and then will give the rest away to blog readers or local friends, so stay tuned for future giveaways.

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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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