The trouble with sitting to garden is that you're 'side-on' to the work and cannot use your body fully. The problem with 12" high is that it doesn't come at a useful bendy bit of your body. Other than that - boulders do sink over time as you raise the soil level. They make lovely habitats for nibbling insects. Perennial weeds wiggle underneath and snigger as you try to root them out. If you were to think about a 'double wall' of rocks - even like a dry stone wall with a gap between for a soil infill, set so the inside space is about 3' across and set to catch the sun. About as high as where your legs join your body. That way you can lean against it while working. Table top gardening using something like glasshouse staging for growing the smaller versions of vegies. I've noticed that many of my senior gardener friends are growing more of the gourmet foods than the bulk 'feed the family' crops. Many of them don't need the sheer space required for crops such as potatoes. Cut and come again crops don't need vast space - just good soil, warmth and reliable water. Aside: if you think about installing a covered area and hard paths now you'll be willing to go out to garden for much longer, even when less agile than now. A glasshouse, or protected area, is wonderful for pottering and thinking and tinkering. Just be sure it's big enough to allow for a walking frame or seat. It probably won't need heating if you have it set to catch much of the winter sun. As soon as you're comfortable with the notion - look for ways to do your vegie gardening in 'unconventional' ways to get the crops you use the most. And, if you're planning to have fruit trees - think dwarf and espallier - and making them part of your landscaping layout as attractive, airy space dividers. Much easier to care for and harvest from.

Grant, it's almost "as easy as falling off a log"! I invited a friend to take some cuttings and I don't really remember when he took the shoots, but they all did well. He took one to TX and reported that it had grown to bush size in just a few months. Most of the sites I visited recommended taking cuttings in February or March. Honestly, here, I think anytime during the winter would be OK since we barely have any winter. On another note, I can't prove it, but I suspect my souring problem is exacerbated by having irrigation and an overgrown tree. I'm going to take a cutting myself and pot it up on the dry side of the yard just to see if it makes a difference. Meantime, if someone has another variety they'd be willing to share a cutting of later this year, let me know. Here is a link that might be useful: propagating figs from cuttings

"I'm using 100% perlite around and under the cutting and then surrounding that with good potting mix or peat. The idea here is to provide this well drained structure to prevent rot, but also providing food for the plant." I have some thoughts on what you offered, both general and specific, but I don't want you to think I'm offering them in a personal way. It's important to understand that the plant's 'food' doesn't come from the soil. It comes from the sun, with the plant making its own food, sugar, via the process of photosynthesis, so we can eliminate anything you mix into your rooting substrate as a source of 'food'. Since the cutting's ability to carry on photosynthesis is severely limited by the fact there are no leaves, the plant must rely almost entirely on the current supply of stored photosynthate as the energy source used to make roots - something entirely separate from any nutrition supplied by the soil. Since what we make the rooting substrate of is of little importance, as long as it holds the right mix of air/water and isn't pyhtotoxic (poison to plants), we need look pretty much to only the physical properties of the rooting medium. If you wanted to use it, a mix of broken tempered glass would make a fine rooting medium, if you watered frequently enough. My point is that you're going through a lot of extra effort unnecessarily, and actually limiting yourself by including the peat or potting mix. Your results would very likely be better if you simply used screened and rinsed perlite as a singular substrate - or any one of a number of other substrates comprised of large particles. The key to best rooting success when we consider only the PHYSICAL properties of the rooting medium are very simple. Staying focused on maximizing aeration while still being able to keep the cutting sufficiently hydrated is best. It produces roots faster and stronger than any other method. Substrates free of fungal spores, that is to say sterile, and other infectious organisms also offer a considerable advantage. Ficus carica is endowed with extreme genetic vigor, so the plant more often roots in spite of how we treat the cuttings instead of because of how we treat them. If the species was more temperamental when it comes to rooting, we would see most of the methods ascribed to for rooting carica falling by the way in favor of methods that adhere more closely to science than anecdote. Fortunately, the species is very forgiving, which allows for success by a plentiful number of methods - not all of which employ the basic principles associated with sound methodology. Al

This is my new experiment. Our acreage is studded with HUGE boulders and many mid size to small ones too. I have a few fig trees. I plan to take cuttings soon, dig a slant hole on the South side of a boulder, and let the dampness under the boulder encourage roots and water the tree. No irrigation ever. I have nothing to lose. These are cuttings from trees I own. Just would rather reap and share fruit with the birds, the coons, and whatever than look at tumbleweeds. I edited this to say that figs do not like "wet feet." They love to be under rocks in that dampness, but their tops love sun. Have any of you planted anything under a boulder to let the dampness provide the water it needs?