This berry combines amazing taste and great health benefits. Even on the smallest plot, you can always find a place for her, especially since growing and caring for strawberries is not particularly difficult.
Material Content:
Strawberry Care
No special operations during landing and further care are required. Watering, fertilizing and cultivating the land is carried out in the same way as for other vegetable or berry crops, but taking into account the biological characteristics of strawberries.
Soil requirements and preparations
This berry loves a fertile loose earth with a neutral or slightly acid reaction. Most suitable are sandy loam and loam. Strawberries grow in one place up to 4 years, so it is so important to choose the right place for growing and prepare it well.
What should be the strawberry patch?
- With low standing groundwater. Strawberries are very sensitive to high humidity in the root zone, so places where water stagnates or is close to it will not work. If there is no other site, high bulk ridges will help.
- The bed should not be in a valley where cold air accumulates. In such places, the development of plants slows down, and the yield falls. In severe winters, bushes can simply freeze.
- The soil should be sandy loamy or loamy. It can be improved by adding clay to the sand, and sand to the clay.
- If the acidity of the soil does not correspond to the optimal values for strawberries, acidic soil should be liming, and too alkaline - acidify. This must be done in the season preceding planting.
- The site should be closed from strong winds so that snow does not blow away from the beds in winter. A slight air movement is welcome. If the bushes are well ventilated, they suffer less from fungal diseases.
- The place should be flat or have a slight slope to the south-west. On a steeper slope, plants will suffer from drought.
- In the year of laying the berry plantation and in the previous season, crops from the family of solanaceous, pumpkin or asteraceae should not grow on the bed. They have common diseases with strawberries or are affected by the same pests. Raspberries or apple trees should not be nearby.
Strawberries bear fruit well and produce sweet berries only in areas lit by the sun throughout the day.
How to prepare a bed for planting?
The supply of nutrients for the successful development of perennials must be thorough. A bed for strawberries needs to be prepared in the season preceding planting. For spring planting, this is autumn, and for late summer and autumn - spring.
They dig a garden, carefully choosing even the smallest weed roots. Before digging, make for each meter square. a bucket of humus, 50 g of complex fertilizer, 0.5 l of ash and 30 g of superphosphate. Fresh manure is not advisable. There are many seeds of weeds and pathogens of various diseases. Before planting, it is better to sow the garden with green manure. The benefit from this is twofold: weeds will not grow, plants will receive additional fertilizer. For strawberries, the annual lupine is most suitable.
How and when to plant
Planting time depends on the region, but all the same, summer-autumn landing is preferable. Next year it will already be possible to get a small crop, while during the spring planting the whole season practically disappears. In the spring, strawberries are planted soon after the snow melts, without waiting for the establishment of hot weather. Summer planting begins on July 25 and ends a month before the onset of frost. The earlier the berry bushes are planted, the more significant they will yield a crop next year.
For planting, choose well-developed rosettes with 4 or more leaves, a root neck diameter of at least 6 mm and a root length of at least 7 cm. Landing is carried out in one or two lines. In the first case, the distance between the bushes can be reduced to 25 cm, in the second it should be 30 cm for varieties of medium strength and up to 60 cm for powerful and productive varieties. The distance between the lines is from 40 to 60 cm.
Landing algorithm.
- Dig holes in accordance with the selected landing pattern. The depth of the hole is approximately equal to the length of the roots.
- A liter of water is poured into each well.
- Gently straighten the roots of seedlings, in no case they are not twisting.
- Sprinkle the roots with soil so that the root neck is strictly at the level of the soil. The heart of the seedlings do not fall asleep.
- Mulch the soil around the bushes with hay, bark or coniferous litter.
- Shade plants, covering them with a spanbond.
Watering and watering
The first seven days after planting, the plants are watered daily, especially if the weather is dry. Subsequently, moderate soil moisture is maintained.
Strawberries have a fibrous root system, which is located in the upper layer of the earth. It does not tolerate drought and lack of nutrients. When watering, the soil should be soaked to a depth of 20 cm.
Tasty recipe: ground strawberries with sugar recipe for winter
In the year of planting, strawberries need autumn top dressing. Starting next year, plants need to be fed regularly. During the season, do 3 dressings. The first is carried out in early spring after the sanitary treatment of the garden. In order for the leaves and shoots to grow faster, complete mineral fertilizer is additionally enriched with nitrogen in a 2: 1 ratio. 15 g of the mixture are dissolved in 8 l of water and 1 l of solution is poured under each bush.After top dressing, strawberries are watered with clean water.
The second top dressing is done immediately after harvesting. At this time, strawberries lay flower buds for next year's harvest. It’s enough to deposit per sq. 30 g of fertilizer for strawberries in dry form, patched in the ground or pour bushes with its solution.
The third top dressing is needed for strawberries before wintering. 20 g of potassium sulfate and 10 g of superphosphate are diluted with a bucket of water and poured per liter on each bush. Instead of this top dressing, you can make 50 g of Kemir autumn fertilizer for each sq. m
Cleaning the soil from weeds and insects
It is carried out even before planting strawberries, carefully digging the bed. Weeds are tenacious, and their seeds do not lose their germination for decades. Therefore, you will have to deal with them regularly and often. To facilitate the task you need to create conditions under which weeds simply can not grow.
- Mulch the berry plantation with mulching material in a 10 cm layer, adding it as it decays.
- Organize drip irrigation. In dry land, weeds simply will not have a chance to grow.
- Plant bushes in mulching material. It is best to use black spanbond. They cover the garden, make holes in which they plant strawberries. This covering material allows moisture to pass through but reliably isolates the bed from sunlight, without which weeds will not grow.
Features of care after harvesting
The time from harvesting to wintering is the pause that strawberries need to grow horns and lay flower buds for a new crop. Therefore, even at this time it is impossible to leave plants without care.
You need to do the following:
- they remove mulch material from the garden in which numerous pests have accumulated, burn it or carry it away from the garden;
- loosen aisles and harvest weeds;
- fertilizing with fertilizers, as described above;
- pour ash in the aisles - 2 liters per square meter. m and rotted compost, all this is closed up in the ground;
- remove all mustaches, leaving them only on the uterine bushes intended for propagation;
- examine the leaves of strawberries, remove the sick and, if necessary, fight diseases and pests.
Complete mowing of strawberry leaves is an extreme measure, which is necessary for severe damage to plants by pests or diseases.
Strawberry propagation
This plant reproduces well vegetatively. The seed method for propagating varieties should not be used - plants do not inherit parental traits and are likely to disappoint with the result. Hybrids are another matter. Initially, hybrid plants can only be obtained from seeds, and later propagate vegetatively. As a rule, they give very few daughter outlets, so the vegetative propagation of strawberry hybrids is difficult.
How to grow strawberry seedlings?
The traditional method of propagating strawberries is vegetative. You can divide and plant old bushes, but at the same time there is always a risk of spreading pests and disease over a new plantation. It is easier to propagate strawberries with daughter sockets, which are called mustaches. The strongest plants are obtained from rosettes obtained from bushes of the first and second years of life. Usually in the first year they observe the fruiting of plants and note the most productive healthy bushes with berries corresponding to the variety. Next year they will give rise to a new plantation. A strawberry bush simply does not have the strength to give a crop and form a full-fledged outlet. Therefore, all peduncles need to be cut off. For reproduction, only first and second order sockets are suitable, after which they pinch the whisker. From one bush you can get no more than 10 outlets. They are helped to take root by carefully sprinkling the roots that appeared on the ground. If strawberries are grown under mulching material, cups or small pots are used to root. By the time of planting, well-developed healthy seedlings will grow.
Seed cultivation
To grow strawberries from seeds will have to work hard.Seedlings grow slowly and require the tireless care of the gardener. Sow strawberries in late February.
Algorithm for growing strawberries from seeds.
- A mixture of peat, sand and turf land is prepared in a ratio of 1: 1: 2. An ordinary purchase soil is also suitable.
- Transparent containers with lids are filled with a mixture, making holes for water drainage in them. The height of the container is about 5cm. Spill the soil with a pink solution of potassium permanganate.
- Gently lay the seeds on the surface of the soil and spray from the spray gun. You can just cover them with a layer of snow.
- Cover the container with a lid and place it on a light, cool window sill.
- They make sure that the soil does not dry out and is not too wet. Watering is carried out by spraying.
- Emerging seedlings are aired from time to time.
- The cover is completely removed when a pair of real leaves appears near the seedlings.
- When the seedlings have a third true leaf, they are dived into separate containers.
- Each week, seedlings are fed a weak solution of complete mineral fertilizer.
The grown seedlings are ready for planting in the ground.
Strawberry: cultivation features
There are many methods and technologies for growing strawberries. Let us dwell on some in more detail.
In the open ground
Most gardeners grow it that way. This method requires certain agricultural techniques: watering, top dressing, cultivation, weeding. All this has already been described above.
In the greenhouse
In this way, strawberries are grown year-round or in the northern regions, where in season it simply does not have time to ripen. If there is a heated greenhouse, it can give a good income. For year-round cultivation, neutral day varieties, repair ones, i.e. fruiting continuously. In order not to engage in pollination yourself, it is better to choose self-pollinated varieties.
Strawberries in a greenhouse can be grown using soil or a special nutrient solution - using hydroponics. Each method has its advantages and disadvantages. Growing in the soil is more troublesome; hydroponics requires large initial equipment costs.
When growing in soil in a greenhouse, the following must be ensured:
- drip irrigation;
- top dressing with full fertilizer 2 times a month;
- additional illumination of plants with special lamps up to 10 hours a day, especially during flowering and fruiting;
- constant air humidity, immediately after transplanting seedlings - 85%, in the future - 75%, during flowering - 70%;
- air temperature is about 23 degrees during the day and about 18 degrees at night.
When grown on an artificial substrate using hydroponics, all the necessary plant substances are obtained from a nutrient solution. The rest of the requirements are the same as for strawberries growing in greenhouse soil.
In PVC pipes horizontally
This method is suitable for both greenhouses and open ground.
The essence of the method:
- in a PVC pipe with side plugs, holes are drilled in a row with a diameter of about 7 cm, with a distance between them of 15-20 cm, the length of the pipes is determined by the length of the future vertical beds; drainage holes should be provided at the bottom of the pipes;
- using fasteners, a pyramid with a wide base is assembled from the pipes so that all the pipes are well lit by the sun;
- they are filled with fertile soil, spilled with water, and strawberry bushes are planted in holes.
For growing in this way, ampel varieties with a compact root system are most suitable.
Further care: regular watering, preferably drip, top dressing 2 times a month with an unconcentrated solution of complete mineral fertilizer, removal of all mustaches. Growing strawberries in PVC pipes horizontally allows you to save space and arrange a strawberry garden anywhere.
Removable strawberries - growing and proper care
Ordinary strawberry varieties bear fruit once a season. Repairing - have several waves of fruiting during this time.Sometimes they go under the snow with berries and flowers. Such a load on plants requires a special approach to their cultivation. Care for maintenance strawberries should be done more carefully: more often, water, feed twice a month with solutions of complex mineral fertilizers. Peduncles of the first fruiting wave are usually removed so that the subsequent harvest - in August and September was plentiful.
Such intense fruiting shortens plant life. Many varieties do not live longer than 2 years, and some only a year. Therefore, planting of repair strawberries has to be updated annually, rooting daughter sockets, creating a new garden.
Diseases and pests and methods of dealing with them
Unfortunately, strawberries are not only loved by people. Hunt for her and a variety of pests. If you do not fight them, the yields go down, and the plants themselves can simply die.
For convenience, we give information about pests, diseases and measures to combat them in the form of tables.
Strawberry Diseases and Controls
| Disease | How does it manifest | How to fight |
|---|---|---|
| Gray rot | Dark gray spots and fluffy coating on leaves and berries | Fitosporin - immediately after flowering once |
| White and brown spotting | Dark spots on the leaves, in the first case small, in the second larger | Fitosporin 3 to 5 times every 5 days |
| Verticillus wilting | The leaves become dark and dry | Maxim 2-3 times per season |
| Late blight | Plants lag behind in growth and gradually dry out | Glyocladin, Trichodermin 2-3 times per season |
| Powdery mildew | White-gray plaque on leaves and fruits | Alirin B, Baktofit 3 to 5 times every 5 days |
Straw pests and control
| Pest | How does it manifest | How to fight |
|---|---|---|
| Nematode | The deformation of young leaves, the growth of stems, plants do not bear fruit | Disinfect acquired planting material in water with a temperature of 45 degrees 10 minutes, then cool. Sick plants are removed and burned. |
| Strawberry mite | Sucks out juice from leaves, destroying plants | Disinfect planting material in hot water. Treatment with colloidal sulfur, karbofos, Neoron |
| Spider mite | Web-bound leaves dry out | Treatment of malathion. Complete mowing of leaves after fruiting |
| Aphid | Sucks plant sap, causing it to die | Processing by Fitoverm, Aktara, Spark, tinctures of garlic, hot pepper. |
It must be remembered that pests and diseases affect primarily weakened plants. In order not to have to use chemical means of protection, it is necessary to strengthen the immunity of plants by properly caring for them.
Strawberry is a recognized delicacy, it gives the body health, saturating it with vitamins, is a therapeutic and prophylactic for many diseases. Berry should find a place in each garden.
