Contents
After a long winter, strawberries, like all other plants, need to be fed. After all, if the soil is poor, a good harvest is not to be expected. When the gardener removes the winter shelter, clears the bushes of last year’s foliage, removes diseased plants, it’s time to feed the strawberries. In order to choose the right fertilizer for strawberries, it is necessary to assess the condition of the plants, know the age of the bushes, and conduct a soil analysis.
How to feed strawberries, what fertilizers to prefer for strawberries, how to determine the right time for feeding – this will be an article.
How to fertilize strawberries
Top dressing of strawberries, as well as other horticultural crops, can be carried out with both mineral and organic fertilizers. There is no unambiguous answer to the question of the better to fertilize the bushes: both purchased complexes and home remedies have advantages.
So, mineral supplements can be purchased at a pharmacy or in a specialized agricultural store. These formulations require precise dosage, and sometimes compliance with the preparation technology (dissolution in water, combination with other chemicals).
In order to accurately calculate the dosage of mineral fertilizer for strawberries, you must carefully read the instructions for the preparation, as well as know the approximate composition of the soil. An excess of chemicals will quickly lead to leaf or root burns, strawberries can shed their ovaries and flowers.
Fertilizing strawberries with organic compounds is safer: the soil will take as much fertilizer as it needs. The only exception is fresh manure or bird droppings – such dressings for strawberry bushes are not used, manure must be fermented.
It is very convenient and profitable to mulch strawberry bushes with organic compounds such as compost or humus. The best time to apply mulch is in the spring, while the bushes are free of flowers and ovaries. Having once laid a layer of humus or compost, you can not worry about feeding strawberries until the end of the current season – the bushes will have enough nutrients for good flowering and a bountiful harvest.
Plants are not accustomed to processing complex top dressing, because they received the necessary substances in finished form.
The best option is the combined feeding of strawberries using both organic and mineral substances. Such a balanced nutrition will allow you to get a decent harvest, and not worry about an overabundance of toxins and the effect of berries on human health.
Feeding strawberries in the first year after planting
The feeding schedule and the amount of fertilizer for bushes directly depends on their age. Very young plants planted last year are recommended to be fed only with mineral fertilizers.
Young strawberries have not yet fruited, the plants only increased the root system and green mass, so the soil did not have time to deplete – all the substances necessary for the development and ripening of fruits remained in the soil.
Mineral supplements are needed only to strengthen the immunity of strawberry bushes, to make them stronger in the fight against diseases and pests. An excellent fertilizer option for strawberries in the first year of her life will be complex top dressing:
- Potassium, phosphorus and nitrogen must be mixed in equal proportions.
- Calculate the amount of fertilizer so that about 100 grams of complex additive per square meter.
- Scatter the mixed granules between the strawberry bushes and loosen the soil a little to embed the fertilizer into the soil.
This method will allow fertilizers to gradually flow to the roots, being absorbed by strawberries from the soil along with water. A good harvest of large berries is guaranteed to the gardener!
The optimal time for the first feeding of strawberries is April, when flower stalks are just beginning to form on the bushes.
Spring top dressing of adult bushes
For several seasons, strawberries absorb all the necessary trace elements and chemical compounds from the soil – the soil is depleted, so the berries become smaller, and the harvest becomes scarce.
You can make up for the lack of nutrients in the spring, when the earth has already warmed up a little and dried out, and the strawberries have awakened and put out young shoots.
Old strawberries are usually fed three times:
- as soon as young leaves appear;
- before flowering;
- at the fruiting stage.
First dressing of strawberries
The best fertilizer for strawberries in the spring is organic. As soon as the bushes begin to grow, young leaves will begin to appear on them, you need to remove last year’s foliage, clean the beds and apply fertilizer.
The earth around the bushes must be loosened, trying not to damage the roots. Then you can spread chicken manure, cow dung or humus between the rows. It is advisable to cover the fertilizer with a layer of earth. Such top dressing will additionally play the role of mulch, and the organic components will be absorbed by the strawberry roots gradually, in the right amount.
If the land on the plot with strawberries is severely depleted, or perennial plants grow there that have already brought more than one crop, a more detailed approach will be required: a balanced complex of organic and mineral fertilizers is needed.
Fertilizing is prepared as follows: 0,5 kg of cow manure is diluted in a bucket of water, mixed and a tablespoon of ammonium sulfate is added there. Each strawberry bush needs to be watered with about a liter of this fertilizer.
Second feeding
The time for the second feeding comes when inflorescences form on the strawberry bushes. In order for the flowering to be plentiful, and each peduncle will turn into an ovary, the plants need to be additionally fertilized.
At this stage, it is desirable to use mineral supplements. This composition works well:
- a tablespoon of potassium;
- two tablespoons of nitrophoska (or nitroammophoska);
- 10 liters of water.
Each bush needs about 500 grams of this top dressing.
The third stage of dressing
This stage of dressing should coincide with the period of berry formation. To make the fruits large and tasty, it is better to use organic fertilizers, because minerals can leave not very useful chemical compounds in the berries.
An infusion of weeds is considered a very effective and affordable fertilizer. For its preparation, absolutely any weeds that can be collected specially or used those that were weeded from garden beds are suitable.
Weeds need to be chopped, chopped with a knife, and poured into a container. It is better to use plastic containers for these purposes, since metal buckets can oxidize and react, spoiling the composition of the fertilizer.
The grass is poured with water so that it is covered. The container is covered and put in a warm place for a week. During this time, fermentation will occur, when the process is over, the solution is diluted with water in a ratio of 1:10 and strawberry bushes are watered under the root.
Foliar top dressing of strawberry bushes
Many gardeners are concerned about the question: “Is it possible to feed strawberries in a foliar way?”. Really, fertilizing strawberries by irrigating its leaves with a special nutrient mixture is considered quite effective.
Bushes can be treated with nitrogen-containing preparations. This fertilizer stimulates the growth and development of bushes, and also has a positive effect on the formation of ovaries and their number.
Spraying strawberry bushes is even more effective than root dressing. The fact is that the leaves absorb nutrients much better and deliver them faster to all plant tissues.
This is best done in the early morning or evening when the sun has set. Suitable for foliar feeding and cloudy weather, but if it rains, the treatment will have to be repeated.
Strawberry leaves will gradually absorb minerals, so re-treatment is only necessary in case of rain.
Recipes for folk fertilizers for strawberries
As practice shows, folk remedies are sometimes no less effective than specially selected mineral complexes or expensive organics.
There are some particularly successful recipes:
- Baker’s yeast. The essence of top dressing using ordinary baker’s yeast is that they create an ideal environment for the reproduction of microorganisms. These microbes process the soil, releasing nitrogen useful for plants into it. Thus, the soil is populated by the necessary organisms, becomes nutritious and loose. The most common, but effective, recipe using baker’s yeast: a kilogram of fresh yeast is dissolved in five liters of warm water and a glass of sugar is added there. The composition will be ready when the fermentation process is over. Then 0,5 liters of fertilizer is diluted in a bucket of water and the mixture is used to water the strawberries.
- A mixture of yeast and black bread. Crusts of any rye bread are added to the usual yeast composition, the mixture is infused for several days and is also used to water strawberries.
- Spoiled milk. Strawberries bear fruit well on slightly acidic soils, so the main task of the gardener is to reduce the level of soil acidity. Fermented milk products, such as yogurt, kefir, whey, help well in this case. Additionally, the earth is saturated with microelements such as phosphorus, potassium, sulfur. In addition, sour milk can be applied not only under the root, but also used to irrigate bushes: this will protect strawberries from aphids and spider mites.
The choice of fertilizer and adherence to the feeding schedule is the key to a good harvest of tasty and large strawberries. To maintain the bushes, it is not at all necessary to spend money, strawberries can be fed with organic fertilizers or folk remedies can be used to feed them. You can learn more about such budget fertilizers from the video:
