Contents
Surely there is no more desirable berry than a sweet strawberry. Its taste and aroma are familiar to many from childhood. Strawberries are grown on their land by gardeners in various parts of the world. In Our Country, the culture is also widespread: it is grown in the southern, central and northern strip of the country, including the Urals. The climatic features of the region require the gardener to follow certain rules for growing this berry. Farmers, in turn, offer special cold-resistant varieties of strawberries for cultivation. Detailed information on how to get a good harvest of delicious berries in the Urals can be found below in the article.
A little about strawberries
What we all used to call strawberries is actually a herbaceous plant of the strawberry genus. In botany, they call it that: musky or nutmeg strawberries, garden. Plants perfectly tolerate winter frosts in the presence of snow cover. At the same time, drought can be fatal for them. You can grow berries in sunny or slightly shaded areas of the earth.
Varieties for the Urals
There are many different varieties of strawberries, however, not all of them are suitable for the climate of the Urals. When choosing a variety for growing strawberries in the Urals in the open field, you need to pay attention to the following criteria:
- increased winter hardiness;
- immunity to pests and diseases;
- the ability to grow in conditions of high humidity, resistance to rot;
- precocity
- high yield, large size of berries and good taste of fruits.
Focusing on these simple criteria, you can independently choose from the whole variety of existing varieties suitable for the Urals. Breeders also offer a number of zoned remontant and non-repairable strawberry varieties.
Non-repairable varieties
Ordinary, non-repairable strawberries bear fruit once per season. Its main advantage is a large and very tasty berry. Garden varieties are more resistant to weather anomalies, moisture deficiency. And even if due to some circumstances the strawberry leaves partially fell off, the bushes will quickly grow new foliage. The disadvantages of ordinary strawberries include low yields.
For the conditions of the Urals, among non-repairable varieties, the best are “Amulet”, “Dawn”, “Asia”, “Honey” and some others. Due to their high resistance to cold, they can be safely grown in open areas of the earth.
Remontant varieties of strawberries
Among professional farmers there are many admirers of remontant berries. The thing is that it has a high yield and a long period of fruiting. During the season, remontant strawberries produce fruits in two stages. The first stage of fruit ripening occurs in early spring. At this time, you can collect up to 30% of the total seasonal crop. The second stage of fruiting remontant strawberries occurs at the end of summer. During this period, 70% of the crop ripens.
For the Urals, we can recommend such remontant varieties as Lyubava, Geneva, Brighton. The variety of continuous fruiting “Queen Elizabeth II” is also suitable for the harsh climatic conditions of the Urals.
Features of growing berries in the Urals
You can plant strawberries in the ground in the Urals in early spring or early autumn. Planting plants in the spring can deprive the owner of the crop in the current year, so this is more often done in late August – early September. Such a planting schedule allows young plants to adapt to new conditions, take root and gain enough strength for a successful winter.
Under favorable conditions, strawberry seedlings may begin to grow mustaches before the onset of winter. Unfortunately, they must be removed, because young plants unreasonably spend too much effort on their maintenance.
You can grow strawberries in the Urals in open ground using traditional technology or using advanced methods. Each method has its own characteristics, however, the basic cultivation rules are unchanged.
Planting strawberries in the ground
Strawberries can be grown in beds or as a continuous planting plantation. The beds should be high mounds, with gentle edges. It is recommended to plant strawberries on the ridges in two rows. A small groove can be made between them, into which a hose for drip irrigation will subsequently be placed.
Planting density is of particular importance. The thing is that dense plantings contribute to the development of all kinds of diseases, the leaves and berries of plants receive little light and are poorly ventilated. Strawberry seedlings should be arranged in a checkerboard pattern. Distances between rows can be from 30 cm. Strawberry bushes in one row should be planted no closer than 20 cm to each other.
Before planting strawberry seedlings, you should take care of the nutritional value of the soil. This is especially important for the conditions of the Urals. So, manure embedded in the soil will additionally warm the plants in this cold climate. Manure can be laid into the soil during the autumn digging of the earth or in the spring, just before planting. As for other crops, rotted manure should be used for strawberries, while horse excrement will give the maximum amount of heat.
In addition to manure, some minerals, namely potassium and phosphorus, must be added to the soil before planting strawberry seedlings. These trace elements will speed up the process of plant rehabilitation in new conditions and improve the taste of berries. So, before planting seedlings, potassium sulphate and superphosphate should be added to the soil, in the amount of 15 and 40 g of each substance, respectively. You can replace these fertilizers with natural wood ash. In dry form, it is sprinkled on the surface of the soil during digging. Nutrients can also be added directly to the wells before planting.
Plant Care
Having planted plants in the fall, they must be watered before the onset of cold weather as the soil dries. For irrigation, you need to use warm water (+200FROM). Watering strawberries can be done by sprinkling.
In some cases, strawberry bushes planted in autumn begin to produce flower stalks, but they must be removed so that the plants gain enough strength for winter. With the advent of cold weather, strawberry plantings must be covered with a layer of geotextile and spruce branches. This will prevent the plants from freezing in winter.
Spring troubles
With the advent of heat, in April, covering material from the ridges must be lifted and the plants fed with complex fertilizer. Dry leaves and rubbish from the garden should be removed, the bushes should be cut.
An example of how to properly cut strawberries in spring is shown in the video:
When the first flowers appear, strawberries are recommended to be fed a second time. To do this, you can use complex fertilizers “Iskra”, “Alatar” or others. At the same time, it would be useful to fertilize the strawberries with wood ash. Mustaches that appear on plants still need to be removed. They can be planted on the mother’s bed for rooting and building green mass, and then transferred to a place of constant growth.
Before the first berries appear, strawberry bushes must be regularly watered and fertilized. At this time, you can use drip irrigation or sprinkling. Potash and phosphate fertilizers can be added to irrigation water. Also, as necessary, weeds should be removed from the beds, loosening should be carried out.
How to increase and protect crops in summer
After the formation of berries and as they ripen, it is recommended to use only drip irrigation, since moisture on the surface of the berries can cause them to rot. When observing symptoms of infection with viral or fungal diseases, strawberries must be treated with special antiseptic agents. In this case, Bordeaux liquid at a concentration of 1% will remove harmful microflora on plants and in the soil, as well as feed strawberries and improve the process of fruit formation. You can use this tool for therapeutic and prophylactic purposes.
It is not worth fertilizing strawberries during the ripening of berries with mineral complexes, since the fruits can accumulate nitrates in themselves. If necessary, you can use yeast fertilizers or organics for top dressing.
You can feed strawberries with a solution of fresh yeast, prepared in a ratio of 1:10. Fertilizer with bread infusion is also an effective remedy. To do this, the crusts of yeast bread are soaked in water and, after infusion, spread the resulting mass on a bed with strawberries, embedding it in the ground by loosening. A large amount of harmless nitrogen is found in coffee grounds, which can also be applied to the soil. Traditional fertilizing with mullein and grass infusion also allows the plants to gain enough strength to form a large number of tasty and healthy berries.
After harvesting, I do not forget the garden
After harvesting the berries of the first wave of the harvest, the plants should be fed with a mineral complex fertilizer. If we are talking about ordinary strawberries, then before the onset of cold weather, it is necessary to additionally treat plants from insects and fungus. To do this, you can use wood ash or Bordeaux mixture, iodine (8 drops per bucket of water). It is worth noting that dusting strawberries with wood ash repels some insects, prevents the development of fungal diseases and feeds plants with phosphorus, potassium, calcium and other minerals. After fruiting, the soil on the ridges should also not be allowed to dry out, periodically carrying out moderate watering of the plants.
If we are talking about a remontant plant, then a few weeks after the harvest of the first wave of berries, you can see a new stage of flowering. At this time, strawberries must be watered abundantly, fertilized and treated with pesticides. In the absence of such care, the berries of the second wave will be small and “ugly”. After picking the berries, it is necessary to once again fertilize the plants with mineral fertilizers.
With the onset of cold weather, regardless of the frost resistance of the variety, it is recommended to cover strawberries in the open ground of the Urals to prevent freezing. As a covering material, you can use geotextiles, burlap, polyethylene, spruce branches.
Thus, the cultivation of strawberries in the open ground of the Urals consists of a number of successive stages, during which it is necessary to take into account the stage of plant vegetation. Timely correct watering and a sufficient amount of top dressing allow you to get a good harvest of berries many times without depleting the plants of remontant varieties.
Methods for growing strawberries in the open field of the Urals
The above technology for growing plants is fully consistent with the rules for growing strawberries in the open field. However, the creation of open beds is a traditional, but less progressive method of growing crops in the Urals compared to covering and high beds.
Strawberries on polyethylene
This strawberry growing technology is the most progressive. It avoids many of the disadvantages of growing berries in open ground:
- the roots of the plant are covered, which prevents them from freezing;
- when watering, moisture enters directly under the root of the plant;
- the coating does not allow moisture to evaporate from the soil;
- lack of weeds in the garden, facilitated plant care;
- the berries are above the surface of the film, not in contact with damp soil, which significantly reduces the likelihood of their decay.
The disadvantage of this technology is that some financial investments are required to purchase the material.
Growing strawberries in beds covered with polyethylene is quite simple. To do this, it is necessary to prepare the soil and form trapezoidal ridges, by analogy with the above technology. Before planting, the ridges must be covered with material (polyethylene, geotextile). On the surface of the material, it is necessary to make markings – put points where the holes with strawberries will be located. Scissors need to make holes with a diameter of 5-8 cm. Plant strawberry seedlings in the holes.
You can clearly see the use of this technology in the video:
Warm beds for strawberries
Warm beds are a fairly new, but effective tool for growing strawberries in the Urals.
A warm bed for strawberries in the Urals can be made in a box or in a trench. The box can be created from boards, slate, bricks, tires or other improvised material. A trench can be obtained by digging up the earth. The depth of the structure should be at least 50 cm. Drainage must be placed at the bottom of a warm bed, since strawberries love damp but well-drained soil. Broken bricks or, for example, large tree branches can be used as drainage. On top of them you need to put a layer of coarse organic matter – the tops of plants, foliage. The next layer is manure, compost. When overheated, it will not only nourish the strawberries with nutrients, but also release heat that warms the roots of the plant. All of the above layers should have a thickness of 10-15 cm. The top layer of the beds is fertile soil. Its thickness should be at least 20 cm.
You can see an example of creating a universal warm bed in a box in the video:
Growing strawberries on warm beds or on top of covering material is relevant for farmers in the Urals, since the main principle of these technologies is aimed at heating the roots, which allows you to safely preserve plants in winter and create optimal conditions for them in summer.
Conclusion
Thus, it is possible to get a good harvest of berries in the Urals in the open field, but for this it is necessary to choose the most suitable crop variety and strictly follow all the basic rules for its cultivation. Timely feeding with nutrients, watering, pruning and loosening will allow you to get the maximum number of berries even in the harsh climate of the Urals. Unique methods of creating ridges using shelters or decaying organic matter can reduce the risk of freezing plants, facilitate strawberry care and increase crop yields.