How to properly grow garden strawberries

High-quality seedlings should be strong, with two or three leaves and a root system of at least 5 cm. Strawberries are light-requiring, beds located strictly from north to south are suitable for it.

It is better to plant berries after garlic, onions, dill, peas, lupines, oats, radishes and marigolds. In no case should you plant strawberries after potatoes or tomatoes (they are loved by common diseases), near or after plums (they are equally strongly affected by weevils and aphids).

We plant the bushes relative to each other: at least 50 cm in a row and from 50 to 70 cm between rows and in a checkerboard pattern (the plants must be displaced). The width of the bed for a two-row planting can be from 80 cm to 1 m.This method will provide light access to each plant, good ventilation, the ability to care when trimming the mustache and harvesting.

For single-row cultivation (on the ridge), the distance between bushes and between rows should be 30-50 cm.

Seedlings are planted in the spring – before the third decade of May, in summer – in the last days of August – in the first ten days of September.

So that the roots of strawberries do not bend, planting is carried out with the wet method, filling the hole with water and gradually pouring an earthen substrate directly into the water. When planting strawberries, you need to check that the seedling heart (a rosette of leaves with a growing point) is at the soil level, not higher or lower. If it turns out to be deepened, the plant will die; if high above the ground, it will be emaciated.

Garden strawberries love moderately moist, loose soils.

Mulching is important for young plantings: it retains moisture, protects against weeds, gray rot, slugs and snails. In plants planted in spring, flowers must be removed for the growth of the vegetative mass and the establishment of flower buds of the future harvest (for small-fruited remontant strawberries, it is not necessary). It is necessary to make weekly foliar dressing (spraying on the leaves, including on the lower side), for example, with the preparation “Shining-1” (1 tbsp. L. Per 10 l of water) in combination with the preparation “Gumistar” (0,5 tbsp. 10 liters of water) and once a month with the addition of 10 granules of the “Healthy Garden” or “Ecuberin” preparations. You can use fertilizing with the mineral complex fertilizer “Uniflor Mikrorost”, as well as humic fertilizers “Gumi”, “Ideal”, etc. For the prevention of fungal diseases, three times spraying with Bordeaux liquid is carried out.

For plants that are not the first year, it is necessary to carry out earthing (powdering the roots at the base). The second year of growing strawberries also requires regular feeding. In total, three dressings should be carried out during the season. The first – before the onset of stable warm weather and before the ovary appears, after cleaning the beds from old foliage and peduncles. The second is when peduncles appear. The subcortex can be carried out by alternating the “Shining-1” and “Shining-2” fertilizers. The infusion of vermicompost, or “Gumistar”, is also good. A tincture of horse manure “Orgavita” or chicken droppings will do (the first part of the droppings is infused in two parts of water and diluted 20 times). The last dressing is carried out after picking the berries – for laying the future harvest. In the herbal (manure) infusion, add “Shining-3”, “Gumistar”, nitrophoska or any other complex fertilizer and pour 0,5 cups of ash under each bush.

To obtain a good harvest, it is necessary to regularly trim the strawberry whiskers.

Repaired varieties (yielding crops several times a year) need feeding every week throughout the season. For them, special fertilizers for strawberries are suitable, for example, “Gumi-Omi” or organic extracts of humic fertilizers. With good care, strawberry beds with one-time fruiting can bear fruit in one place for four years, but experience shows that it is better not to leave strawberries in the same garden for more than three years.