Contents
Strawberries are a favorite berry for both adults and children. Indescribable taste and aroma, undoubted health benefits are its main advantages. This delicious berry belongs to the Rosaceae family and is a hybrid of Chilean and Virginian strawberries. Both parents come from America, only the Virginian is from the North, and the Chilean is from the South. Currently, there are about 10000 varieties of this sweet delicacy, but the most common and traditionally grown varieties are much smaller.
Usually strawberries are grown in beds, but the size of the garden plots does not always allow you to plant as many strawberries as you want. Gardeners have long been using alternative planting methods – in old barrels or pyramids from car tires. In such structures, strawberry bushes are arranged vertically. Recently, large-diameter PVC pipes have been increasingly used for vertical landing. They are easier to work with, and strawberries planted vertically in PVC pipes look so attractive that they may well become part of the garden design.
Strawberries love light throughout the day and will not bear fruit in the shade.
What you need for vertical ridges
Of course, you need pipes. The larger their diameter, the better – each strawberry bush will have a larger amount of soil. As a rule, the diameter of the outer pipe is selected from 150 mm. You will need another PVC pipe – internal. Through it, strawberries in vertical pipes will be watered and fed. The diameter of the watering pipe should not be large – even 15 mm is enough.
In order to prevent leakage of water or fertilizer mixture in the lower part of the vertical structure, the irrigation pipe must be closed with a plug. To carry out watering, a thin pipe must have holes. Warning! Earth from a large pipe can clog the holes intended for irrigation.
To prevent this from happening, the watering device must be secured with a thin cloth or nylon stocking. Not bad for this and geotextiles.
To drill holes, you need a drill, and to cut pieces of a certain length, you need a knife. Pebbles or gravel as drainage will prevent the accumulation of water at the base of the pipe, and, consequently, the decay of plants. The soil for planting will also have to be prepared. Well, the most important thing is high-quality planting material of suitable varieties.
Making a vertical garden
- We determine the height of wide pipes, taking into account the fact that it was convenient to take care of the strawberry plantation. With a knife we cut pieces of the required size.
- We make holes in a wide pipe with a large diameter nozzle. The diameter of the hole is such that it is convenient to plant bushes there, usually not less than 7 cm. We make the first hole at a height of 20 cm from the ground. If we store the structure in winter, laying it on the ground, from the side that will look to the north, there is no need to make holes. For comfortable strawberry growth, the distance between the planting windows should not be less than 20 cm. A checkerboard pattern is the best way to arrange the holes.
- We measure and cut off pieces of a thin pipe intended for irrigation. To make it more convenient to water and feed strawberries, we make a thin pipe 15 cm longer than the planting one.
- We perforate the upper 2/3 of the watering device with a drill or a screwdriver, the holes are not rare.
- We wrap the watering pipe with a prepared cloth, which should be fixed, for example, with a rope.
- We attach the cap to the bottom of the irrigation pipe. This is necessary so that water and liquid top dressing do not flow down and are evenly distributed between the strawberry bushes.
- We close the bottom of the large pipe with a lid with holes and fix it. If you have to move the vertical bed to a new place, the structure will not crumble.
- We install a thick pipe on the place chosen for the vertical beds. For better stability, you can dig a little pipe into the ground. At its bottom we place the prepared drainage. It has two functions at once: it does not allow the soil to be strongly moistened in the lower part of the pipe and makes the vertical bed more stable.
- Now we fix the irrigation pipe in the center of the thick pipe.
- We fall asleep in a thick pipe soil.
How to make such a bed from a pipe can be seen in the video:
It should be nutritious, but not overly so. Land from the beds on which nightshade grew, and even more so strawberries, cannot be taken so that the berry grower does not get sick with late blight.
The composition of the soil for a vertical bed
It is best to prepare sod land for growing strawberry bushes. If this is not possible, a mixture of earth from the garden or forest soil from under deciduous trees and aged peat in equal proportions will do. For every 10 kg of the mixture, 1 kg of humus is added. To this amount add 10 g of potassium salt, 12 g of ammonium nitrate and 20 g of superphosphate. The mixture is thoroughly mixed and filled with it the space between the pipes, slightly compacting.
Seedlings are planted in moist soil.
We plant seedlings
If phytosporin is used in the form of a paste already enriched with humates, it is not necessary to add humate to the root treatment solution. Exposure time is six hours, seedlings are kept in the shade.
Young rosettes with a developed root system are planted. The roots should not be longer than 8 cm. The length of the roots can be reduced by cutting them. Attention! Never twist the roots of strawberries when planting. She will be sick for a long time and may simply not take root.
After planting, strawberry bushes need to be shaded for survival. You can cover the vertical bed with non-woven material.
Plant Care
The earth in a vertical bed dries out quickly, so you need to water the vertical plantation often. Finding out if watering is needed is very simple: if the soil is dry at a depth of 2 cm, it’s time to moisten the plantings.
Top dressing is a necessary element of caring for vertical beds. Intensive fruiting is possible only with good nutrition. Therefore, in addition to the three traditional dressings – in early spring, at the stage of budding and after fruiting, at least two more will have to be carried out. A complete complex fertilizer with trace elements and a humate additive for root growth is the most suitable option. Closed ground determines the features of top dressing. They need to be carried out more often, but with solutions of lower concentration.
Varieties of strawberries for vertical plantation
Growing strawberries in PVC pipes has a number of features. One of them is the right choice of variety. There are many varieties of this berry, differing not only in taste and appearance, but also in terms of ripening. To grow strawberries, as strawberries are correctly called, in a small space you need to choose a variety that will feel good under these conditions.
The best option would be to plant an ampel remontant variety.
Of course, such strawberries will not curl, since they are not capable of doing this by their nature, but the hanging bunches of strawberries will look especially attractive. And their ability to bear fruit additionally also on newly formed rosettes significantly increases the yield. Remontant varieties ripen quite early and bear fruit in waves almost the entire season until frost. But the cultivation of such varieties requires sufficient nutrition and compliance with all growing conditions.
If the gardener can provide plants with such care, then the most suitable varieties and hybrids are as follows.
Elan F1
The hybrid was bred in Holland. The first berries appear already in June, the rest of the crop Elan bushes give the whole season until late autumn. The berries are medium to large. Their maximum size is 60 gr. The taste of this hybrid is beyond praise. If you provide him with proper care, then for the season you can collect up to 2 kg of first-class berries. Elan is resistant to pests and diseases, easily puts up with inaccuracies in care.
Geneva
An American variety that has been around for 20 years. It begins to bear fruit in June and does not stop doing so until the very cold weather, giving wave after wave of sweet and tasty berries weighing up to 50 grams. Its feature is unpretentiousness in cultivation.
Conclusion
If everything is done correctly, then you can get the result, as in the photo:
