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Every year the flow of townspeople who go to their dachas increases. Country life is full of pleasures: fresh air, silence, natural beauty and the opportunity to grow vegetables, fruits, herbs and berries with your own hands. Almost every summer cottage grows a traditional set: raspberries, currants, gooseberries, strawberries, or as it is also called garden strawberries. Growing strawberries does not require constant hassle, however, some rules for garden strawberry farming still exist. Choosing a place, preparing the soil, choosing a variety: you will find photos and videos with answers to the basic questions of how to grow strawberries in this article.
Selecting a landing site
Growing strawberries will be successful with proper soil preparation. The best harvest can be obtained by planting garden strawberry bushes on neutral, light, fertilized soils. Place the strawberry bed in a sunny, wind-sheltered spot. Garden strawberries love moist soil, but react negatively to excess moisture; the site for planting seedlings should not be swampy. It is not necessary to grow strawberries in areas where there is stagnant water in spring and after heavy rains.
Terms of planting
Garden strawberries can be planted in spring and autumn. Planted in the spring, strawberries will not bear fruit in the first summer, so it is wiser to postpone the planting of strawberry bushes until autumn, by winter they will take root and get stronger. The following year, strawberries will give the first harvest of berries.
Autumn landing
Gardeners have fewer worries in autumn than in spring. There is a lot of planting material, strawberries have sprouted mustaches, the weather is warm, far from frost. Young strawberry bushes will take root and successfully overwinter. There are three stages of autumn planting of garden strawberries:
- Early (mid-August-mid-September);
- Medium (from September 15 to October 15);
- Late (no later than a month before frost).
The choice of planting time for strawberries depends on climatic features and the cyclical development of plants. Mustaches released by strawberry bushes in June-July will take root in the soil in July or August, forming fruiting buds in September or October. Early and mid autumn plantings of strawberries yield more than late autumn plantings.
Spring landing
Didn’t have time to plant garden strawberry bushes in the fall? Wondering how to properly grow strawberries, even if the soil is not prepared in advance? Do not despair: everything can be done in the spring by buying seedlings, or growing them from seeds.
When purchasing garden strawberry seedlings, choose the one that is sold in pots or cassettes.
Successful strawberry cultivation starts with choosing a variety that suits your climate zone. Buy well-developed, healthy seedlings, you can recognize them by bushes of rich green color. Brown, white spots on strawberry seedlings signal diseases. Remove the seedlings in a cool place for three days, prepare the holes so that the distance between the bushes is 30 cm, and between the rows is half a meter. Dig holes for strawberry seedlings 10 cm deep, loosen the borders of the planting hole, form a mound below, on top of which it will be convenient to distribute the roots of the plant.
If the soil has not been fertilized with organic matter since autumn, then put a couple of handfuls of humus and a handful of wood ash in the hole. Cut the roots of strawberry bushes to a length of 7-8 cm, remove excess leaves, leaving 3-4 of the largest. Spread the roots over the mound, cover with earth, compacting the soil well around the roots. To prevent the root collar and base of the leafy rosette of strawberries from rotting, gently pull the plant up after planting. You can water an empty hole before planting a bush, or make abundant watering of the soil after planting a plant. The first summer after planting, garden strawberries, most likely, will not bear fruit.
Soil preparation
Agrotechnics for growing strawberries is the proper preparation of the soil. In the spring, dig up a bed with a pitchfork, remove weed rhizomes from the soil. Strawberries love soil well fertilized with organic matter, so add mullein, humus or compost in the amount of one bucket per square meter2. Add 5 kg of wood ash per 1 m2 soil. Cover the area prepared for planting strawberries with black geotextile to prevent weeds from sprouting. For spring planting seedlings, do the described procedure in the fall. A month before the expected date of planting strawberries, add a tablespoon of Kalijfos or 40 g of superphosphate mixed with 10 g of potassium sulfate per square meter.
Reproduction of strawberries
Nature has taken good care of the reproduction of this plant. Garden strawberries are propagated by seeds, rooted shoots (whiskers) and division of the rhizome, so gardeners do not have a shortage of strawberry planting material.
Propagation of strawberries by seeds
This method is quite troublesome, but it allows you to get healthy seedlings while maintaining varietal characteristics. The secrets of growing strawberries from seeds lie in the right choice of seed. Purchase strawberry seeds from the store, or take them from your own plants by picking ripe, even berries. Leave them in the sun for a few days to soften the pulp. Mash the strawberries, soak them in water. Remove the pulp, wash the seeds and soak again. Those that have gone to the bottom of the tank are suitable for further use. Dry them and put them in a cool, dry place until February.
In February, soak strawberry seeds for several days in water, changing it twice a day. Soak store seeds in a growth regulator according to the instructions for the drug. To germinate seeds for seedlings, sow them in a box filled with disinfected moist soil, cover with glass until germination. Periodically remove the glass to ventilate and moisten the soil.
When sprouts appear, carry out a pick, carry out the second pick in the phase of 4-5 leaves according to the 5×5 cm scheme. A week before planting, harden the seedlings, taking them to a cool place, gradually increasing the time the strawberry bushes are in the cool.
Mustache breeding
Strawberry bushes, after the start of flowering and throughout the summer, grow propagation shoots (whiskers). Choose bushes that will serve as “donors”. Remove the flower stalks and leave the whiskers, and in the middle of summer you will see rosettes on them (young strawberry bushes). Those with 4 or more leaves are suitable as seedlings. Separate the young strawberry bushes from the main plant, plant them together with an earthen clod on the prepared bed, water the strawberry plantings abundantly.
Multiplication by division
Dividing a strawberry bush is not the most popular way to propagate it, although this method does not cause any particular problems. An overgrown adult bush needs to be dug up, carefully divide the plant into several subsidiaries. This is quite simple to do, because the rhizome of the old bush dies off naturally, and it is easily divided into several small bushes. The resulting seedlings are rooted according to the previously described rules.
Crop rotation
Strawberry plantations, even with proper care, cannot bear fruit in the same place for decades. After 3-4 years of active growth and rich harvests, strawberry bushes need to be replaced and planted in another place. Tips for growing strawberries from experienced gardeners are as follows: do not plant this crop where potatoes, tomatoes or cucumbers used to grow. But radishes, carrots, radishes, legumes, as well as onions and garlic are excellent predecessors of strawberries.
Care during the growing season
Remove weeds in a timely manner and loosen the soil, providing air to the roots. Make sure that the roots of the strawberries are not exposed, this will cause them to dry out. Mulching the soil will allow you to get rid of weeds and reduce the amount of watering, which is especially important for summer residents who come to the site on weekends. Remove mustaches and excess leaves so that the strawberry bush gives all its strength to fruiting.
watering schedule for strawberries
The technology of growing strawberries involves maintaining the balance of soil moisture. It is necessary to drink the bushes abundantly, and at the same time avoid waterlogging the roots. Stagnation of moisture at the roots causes the appearance of rot. Start watering strawberry bushes from the end of April at intervals of once every one and a half to two weeks. For one square meter of beds you need 10-12 liters of non-cold water. In summer, the frequency of watering increases to 3-4 times a week. From August to October inclusive, it is enough to water the bushes twice a week. Water in the morning, do not let water get on the plant. Optimum use of drip irrigation.
Top dressing strawberries
Strawberry growing technology dictates regular feeding. In addition to the introduction of organic matter, when planting bushes, three top dressings of adult plants should be carried out per year:
- Before the start of the growing season;
- During budding and fruit formation;
- After the harvest.
In the spring, caring for the site after winter, add half a liter of either nitroammophoska (1 tablespoon per 10 liters of water) or organic matter to the soil under strawberries (1:10 mullein infusion), chicken manure infusion (1:12). As a foliar top dressing, use a mixture of trace elements, taking 2 grams of ammonium molybdate, potassium permanganate and boric acid per 10 liters of water.
At the very beginning of flowering, feed strawberry bushes with potash fertilizer: add ash, chicken manure or potassium nitrate to the soil. You can also carry out foliar feeding in the same period, spraying with a solution of boric acid in the proportion of one teaspoon per 10 liters of water will significantly increase the number of inflorescences, and abundant flowering is the key to a good harvest.
When the harvest of berries is harvested and the leaves are pruned, feed the bushes that have given all their strength to fruiting. Apply 0,5 liters of nitroammophoska solution under each bush, into the soil (2 tablespoons per 10 liters of water). Garden strawberry is a KSD plant (short daylight hours), it lays the fruiting buds of the next season in late summer – early autumn, so in August fertilize strawberry bushes with urea (30 g per 10 l of water) and water it well.
Diseases of garden strawberries
Strawberries have their own pests, affected by fungal diseases. Fruit, gray, root rot; white, brown and brown spotting; late blight, fusarium and verticillium wilt; jaundice and powdery mildew – this is a list of common diseases of garden strawberries. Compliance with crop rotation and preventive treatments at the beginning and end of the growing season of plants will help to avoid these problems. If strawberry bushes are sick, then the use of fungicides becomes inevitable.
Garden strawberry pests
Strawberries are affected by ticks, strawberry nematodes, strawberry-raspberry weevil. Slugs and ants do not bypass the fragrant berry. Proper care, crop rotation, preventive treatment of bushes and soil will reduce the risk of pest attacks.
spring processing
After the snow melts, before the buds swell, remove the winter mulch from the strawberry bushes, destroy it. It is also better to remove the layer of soil under the mulch, or at least loosen it to a depth of 6-8 cm. This measure will help destroy awakening pests. Spill strawberry bushes and soil with a 3-4% solution of Bordeaux liquid, or 2-3% solution of copper sulfate.
Autumn processing
In mid-September, treat the strawberry beds with a mixture of 3 tbsp. spoons of overcooked sunflower oil, 2 tbsp. spoons of liquid soap, wood ash and vinegar, diluted in 10 liters of water. After two weeks, treat the soil with Bordeaux mixture or blue vitriol in the above proportion.
Agrotechnics for growing strawberries is quite simple and accessible to every interested person.