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All gardeners are divided into those who manage to grow garden strawberries, and those who are not yet very successful in this difficult business. This often depends on experience, but not always. Even beginners will be able, if they wish, to get a good harvest of sweet and large strawberries if they follow all the tips and tricks that experienced gardeners can provide them. Of course, choosing the right variety is often of paramount importance, especially for our difficult climatic conditions, but strawberry care is also very important. It is not for nothing that this berry is called the queen, because only if you please all its whims and requirements, you can fully enjoy the delicious taste and aroma of its berries. This article will help you determine all the answers to the question: "How to properly care for strawberries?"
Planting strawberries
It is good if you already have a legacy strawberry plantation, but if not, you will have to start from the very beginning, that is, with planting strawberry bushes.
A place for future beds is chosen on a sunny, level place, preferably protected from strong winds and with a groundwater bed no higher than 70 cm.
The most optimal dates for planting strawberries or garden strawberries are July-August (for the middle lane) and September (for the south of Russia). You can plant strawberries in spring (in April), but then in the first year, fruiting will be weak. Moreover, if you follow the advice of seasoned gardeners, then during spring planting it is better, in general, not to allow strawberry bushes to bloom in the first season and cut off all their peduncles and mustaches.
When developing a new plantation for planting strawberries, perhaps the most important thing is to carefully select all the smallest rhizomes when cultivating the land weeds... Thus, you will greatly facilitate your further care for the strawberry bushes in the country in the next 4-5 years.
In addition, it is very important to add a sufficient amount of organic matter when setting up a strawberry plantation. It is best to apply rotted manure in the amount of 6-7 kg per square meter. The effect of manure lasts about 3-4 years, just as long as it makes sense to grow strawberries in one place. In the future, it is advisable to change the place due to the accumulation of diseases and a decrease in the size of the berries.
When choosing high-quality seedlings for your future strawberry, you should focus on the following characteristics of plants:
- The root system of the bushes should be voluminous and fibrous;
- The diameter of a suitable root collar starts at 0.6 cm;
- The strawberry bush must have at least 3-5 leaves;
- The roots must be elastic, strong, white, at least 7 cm long.
The day before planting seedlings, the soil must be thoroughly shed, but so that it is moist, not wet.
Immediately after planting strawberry bushes, it is advisable to sprinkle the holes with humus and mulch with any organic material: sawdust, straw, cut grass. This will help prevent soil crust formation and conserve moisture in the strawberry bushes.
In the future, caring for strawberries in the first year is reduced to regular watering in hot weather and the removal of peduncles and whiskers when planting in spring.
Spring period
Spring is a very demanding time for gardeners, and if you don't know how to care for strawberries, it is best to start by inspecting your beds as soon as the snow has melted. Most likely, you will find a certain amount of dry and brown leaves, and maybe even a few bushes could not survive the winter and disappeared without a trace. You will need to wait for sunny and dry weather so that the ground around the bushes dries out a little. And the first care procedure will be cutting, collecting and burning all non-living plant residues. If for the winter you covered your strawberry bushes from frost, then it would be better to remove shelters, including organic ones, so that the earth warms up well.
The root system of garden strawberries develops intensively at low, but positive temperatures. During this period, it significantly outstrips the development of the upper vegetative part. Therefore, at this time, it is favorable to transplant some bushes, instead of the dead, or plant new ones. This should be done only as soon as possible, choosing cloudy weather in any case. Soon, with the onset of warmth, the intensive development of the aboveground part of the strawberry will begin, and transplants will need to be stopped.
In the same period, obligatory loosening of the land around the strawberry bushes and row spacings is carried out. This procedure will improve oxygen access to the roots and will help preserve soil moisture. This removes perennial weeds at the same time. If the loosening of the row spacings can be carried out to a depth of 10 cm, then proceed carefully around the bushes themselves. It is advisable to sprinkle earth on the bare roots of older strawberry bushes. And young rosettes, on the contrary, are often pulled into the soil after winter. You need to rake them a little and free the heart, which is the point of growth.
First treatments and feeding
After the destruction of plant debris from the beds and loosening, one of the mandatory procedures for caring for strawberries in the open field is the preventive treatment of strawberry bushes from diseases and pests. Traditionally, copper-containing preparations were used for the prevention of fungal diseases, such as: Bordeaux mixture, Horus, Hom. If you do not want to use chemistry, then you can use a solution of biofungicide - Fitosporin.
Experienced gardeners recommend watering strawberry bushes with hot water with potassium permanganate in early spring. The water temperature should be about + 50 ° + 60 ° C, and add potassium permanganate until a light pink color is obtained. Such a hot shower is good for neutralizing many pests that hibernate in the soil, in particular, from strawberry mites.
The first feeding strawberries in early spring after loosening the land, it is usually carried out using nitrogen fertilizers. You can use ammonium nitrate (application rate 35-45 grams per 1 square meter) or mullein solution. It needs to be soaked in a small amount of water, and then diluted in a ratio of 1:10 and watering the strawberry bushes, spending 4-6 liters per 1 sq. meter. For beginners, special liquid or granular complex fertilizers for strawberries with microelements are very convenient to use.
Before flowering strawberries more potash and phosphate fertilizers are needed. Top dressing of the following composition will be effective: dilute 2 tablespoons of nitroammofoska and 1 teaspoon of potassium sulfate in 10 liters of water. For each strawberry bush, you will need to pour half a liter of solution.
And during flowering, it is good to sprinkle the strawberries with a solution of boric acid.It is prepared simply: 1 gram of boric acid is diluted in one liter of hot water, cooled down and all bushes with peduncles are carefully sprayed with the resulting solution. This procedure can increase yields by 20%.
Mulching strawberry beds
Of course, mulching is not at all a mandatory procedure, but caring for strawberries will not seem so difficult to you if you thoroughly mulch the beds in early spring after loosening and carrying out all the dressings and treatments. A layer of mulch is able to protect the berries from direct contact with the soil, prevents weeds from growing and reduces the amount of watering, as it retains moisture in the ground. When watering, mulch prevents water from splashing soil particles on flowers and berries. In addition, mulch gives the strawberry plantings an aesthetic appearance.
Various materials are used for mulching: sawdust, straw, dry grass, compost, leaf humus, pine needles, tree bark. Inorganic materials are often used: lutrasil and even black film, but only in an annual culture, since it provokes outbreaks of fungal diseases.
It is best if the mulch layer is about 4-7 cm: weeds can germinate through the smaller one, and the thicker one will delay the heating of the soil by the sun. It is advisable to have time to mulch the ridges before flowering.
Summer period
To understand how to care for strawberries in the summer for a full harvest, follow these guidelines:
- Water your bushes at least once a week. If the weather is dry and hot, you may need to water more frequently. Remember that just before flowering, strawberry bushes can be watered from above using a sprinkler. After setting the berries, watering should be carried out strictly at the root.
- During the ripening period of berries, watering should be reduced to a minimum, and resumed only after the strawberries bear fruit.
- Regularly remove weeds and damaged leaves, flowers and berries from the strawberry bushes.
- Pick the ripening berries with the stalks regularly.
- Sprinkle mulch on exposed areas of the ground next to bushes so that the berries do not come into contact with the soil.
- If there are heavy torrential rains, it is advisable to cover the strawberry bed with a film to avoid the development of diseases due to waterlogging.
What you need to do to make the harvest grow every year
Strawberry care is not only about watering and feeding. It is equally important to select the most fertile bushes during the fruiting period. The best bushes are not the ones on which the largest strawberries ripen, and the rest are pea-shaped trifles, but those that give a lot of berries that are more or less even in size. They need to be specially noted somehow, and it is from them, after the formation of a mustache, to choose planting material for reproduction. Moreover, you should choose only a few first outlets from the first, maximum from the second mustache of the selected bushes.
All other mustaches, starting with the third and the rosettes forming on them, should be mercilessly removed - they only take away the strength from the mother bush and do not allow flower buds to be laid for the next year after fruiting.
In addition, there are so-called weed strawberries. Bushes of these varieties either do not bloom at all, or form small, ugly berries, even with the best care.
They only take nutrients from good bushes. This is also important because these bushes usually form a large number of whiskers that act like weeds.
Period after fruiting
Garden strawberries are among the first to bloom and bear fruit in garden plots.But after all, very little time passes after the snow melts before the first berries ripen - where does the strawberry get its strength from for the formation of tasty and sweet berries? And next year's harvest begins to be laid from mid-summer to autumn of this year. That is why caring for strawberries after fruiting is almost the most important throughout the season.
Pruning strawberry leaves
After the end of fruiting, many gardeners cut off all the leaves on the strawberry bushes along with the mustache. Others believe that this procedure weakens the plants. It seems that here it is necessary to adhere to the golden mean - if among the leaves there are many affected by various spots, then it would be better to cut them all off. If the leaves are healthy and strong, then they can be left for this season. In any case, be sure to cut out all the mustaches except the first two if you are interested in breeding this variety. If it was decided to mow everything, then the foliage is cut at a height of about 6-8 cm above the ground, so as not to damage the heart of the outlets, from which new leaves will later develop.
Immediately after trimming planting strawberries need to be fed... For this, a complex mineral fertilizer with trace elements is used. You can use 20-30 grams per square meter.
In the same period, it is necessary to carry out one more loosening of the row spacings with a slight hilling of the bushes.
Roughly all the same is done in the fall, when the strawberries are preparing for winter dormancy.
This video shows in detail and clearly pruning strawberries:
Differences in the care of regular and remontant varieties
There are some differences in how to care for remontant strawberries throughout the season and after fruiting. After all, as you know, the bushes repair strawberries able to form two or even three harvests per season.
- Therefore, watering and feeding should be more regular. Watering is best done by drip - this will greatly save time and effort.
- Pruning of dry and diseased leaves on the bushes must also be carried out regularly throughout the season.
- Mulching should be a must as it keeps you warm in cooler seasons.
- Planting needs to be renewed more often, or every year, or every two to three years.
- Planting remontant strawberries usually require shelter for the winter, since, due to fruiting, up to frost, the bushes do not have time to prepare for the cold.
Let's summarize
By following all of the above tips throughout the year, even a novice amateur gardener will be able to get a good harvest of delicious and sweet strawberries.
