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Growing berry bushes in the backyard, gardeners face serious problems – damage to plants as a result of pest attacks and the spread of various diseases. Many experts advise a rather extreme method – pour currants and gooseberries with boiling water in early spring.
The method is considered very effective, but in order for the plants not to be damaged, it is necessary to know exactly the timing, technique and subtleties of the procedure.
It is possible to grow gooseberries without the use of boiling water, but the harvest of berries will be much more abundant and better if pests and sources of diseases are destroyed in time.
Although this method is unusual, it is environmentally friendly and effective.
Is gooseberry treated with boiling water
Pests that winter in large numbers in any garden on gooseberries and currants are extremely dangerous for the future crop. The best way to deal with them is to destroy them. This can be done with insecticides, which are considered effective. But it is not harmless to the human body, because it can accumulate in fruits and berries.
Pouring currant and gooseberry bushes with boiling water in early spring was used even at a time when there was no such variety of chemicals, and diseases and pests already existed. Thanks to the method, it is possible to destroy a large number of insects at a time, when they are still sleeping and cannot hide or fly away.
If you spill currants and gooseberries with boiling water, then pathogens are also destroyed, with the defeat of which the leaves of the shrub subsequently turn yellow, the branches dry, the berries become covered with bloom and lose their presentation.
The method is popular, it is not considered a panacea for plant protection, but time has proved that, subject to the terms and rules for watering currants and gooseberries with boiling water, the berries tied on the bushes and the blossoming foliage are clean, without signs of disease. Even the use of boiling water in the spring for prevention purposes gives a big plus in the resulting crop.
Why gooseberries are poured with boiling water in spring
The most common disease of gooseberries and currants is powdery mildew.
Because of it, you can completely lose the crop. Do not ignore the disease at its first signs, which boil down to the appearance of a white coating on leaves and berries. Outwardly, it looks like flour scattered over the branches. In fact, these are spores of a fungus, the spread of which takes place at an astonishing rate. After infection with powdery mildew, the branches of the bushes are bent, dry and die. Among the numerous varieties of gooseberries and currants, there are more resistant to the disease, but there are also those that become infected in the first year after planting. With the defeat of the gooseberry berries become stiff, they can not be eaten. Many chemicals and decoctions are powerless against the disease, and treating currants and gooseberries with boiling water in the spring gives a good result. The reason is the sensitivity of powdery mildew pathogens to heat treatment.
It also helps in the destruction of insect pests wintering on gooseberries and currants: sawflies, aphids, kidney moths, gall midges, scale insects. If you pour boiling water over gooseberries, you can get rid of not only them, but also cocoons, eggs and spores, which is inaccessible even for chemicals.
Boiling water helps to destroy the most common pest – the kidney mite.
In early spring, females lay their eggs in young buds of gooseberries and currants. Developing larvae occupy all new kidneys, affecting them and turning them into “bloated”. Weak shoots subsequently develop from them, and ticks carry diseases on themselves – mosaic and terry plants. If you properly treat gooseberries and currants with boiling water in early spring, you can stop the spread of bud mites and a number of bacterial diseases.
The benefits of boiling gooseberries
The method has long been widely used by gardeners, because it has a number of advantages over others:
- ease of implementation – all you need is a watering can and hot water;
- low budget – no special costs are required;
- efficiency – after watering the gooseberries with boiling water in early spring, the bulk of the larvae and pathogenic microorganisms die;
- environmental friendliness – unlike chemicals, the method is absolutely safe for humans.
Experience shows that plants tolerate weather changes, climatic surprises, winter frosts better, and pests appear on them extremely rarely if gooseberry and currant bushes are poured with boiling water in early spring. The leaves on such bushes are more powerful, the berries are larger, the shoots develop more intensively.
The disadvantages of the method include:
- difficulties in determining the exact terms of processing;
- lack of experience in the procedure can lead to plant burns.
You can confidently water currant and gooseberry bushes with boiling water after studying the rules for processing or observing how experienced gardeners do it.
When gooseberries need to be poured with boiling water in spring
It is possible to process gooseberries with boiling water only at a certain time. Otherwise, there is a possibility of not achieving the goal or even destroying the plants.
The approximate timing of the procedure coincides with the end of the snowmelt, when the thickness of its cover is about 10 cm, and it still lies near the gooseberry and currant bushes. At this time, it is warm in spring, there are no frosts even at night. For many regions of the country, such weather conditions occur at different times:
- in the Moscow region – should be watered until March 15;
- in the Yaroslavl, Pskov, Vladimir regions – until March 25;
- in Tula, Smolensk, Kaluga, Ryazan and other regions – March 10 – 12;
- in the Ural region – April 2-0;
- in Western Siberia (Omsk, Tomsk, Novosibirsk regions, Altai Territory) – April 10 – 15;
- in Central Siberia (Transbaikalia, Irkutsk region, Krasnoyarsk Territory) – in the first ten days of April;
- in Eastern Siberia (Primorsky, Khabarovsk Territory, Amur Region) – early April;
- south of Our Country (Astrakhan and Rostov regions, Kalmykia, Krasnodar Territory) – late February-early March.
When determining the timing of when it is best to water the gooseberries with boiling water, one should be more guided by the climatic conditions in a particular region, since the weather often brings surprises.
How to process gooseberries in spring with boiling water
Thanks to boiling water, used to destroy diseases and pests, it is possible to bring the bushes out of hibernation, increase the immunity of the plant. Watering the bushes begins at the end of winter – the first decade of spring, before the start of sap flow and bud break. To this end, a series of sequential actions are performed:
- Heated ordinary water to 100 oC.
- Pour boiling water into a metal watering can with a divider.
- From a height of about half a meter, the branches of currant and gooseberry bushes are watered, trying to evenly moisten all the branches.
- The near-trunk circles of berry bushes are treated with the same water.
- Close the soil under the bushes with a film or roofing material for several days.
This helps to destroy the larvae wintering under the plant, eggs of pests, spores of pathogenic fungi that cause diseases. Boiling water must be scattered over the root system in the same way as over the crown, so as not to damage it. Trunk circles are watered only if the roots are not located too close to the soil surface.
To obtain a greater effect, potassium permanganate (pale pink solution) or ordinary table salt is added to the water in the amount of 60 g per 10 liters of boiling water.
preliminaries
In the spring, when treating gooseberry bushes with boiling water, it is necessary to outline a clear action plan in order to effectively use the time when the water does not cool down during the treatment and, as a result of the procedure, a visible effect is obtained in the future.
First, it is determined which gooseberry and currant bushes need to be poured with boiling water. Next, it is worth pulling their branches with twine, thereby reducing the processing area and simplifying the process itself.
If currant or gooseberry bushes have a root system close to the soil surface, you should make sure and protect it from burns. For this purpose, you can use any material at hand – boards, plywood, slate.
As the main tool, a metal watering can with a divider is used. Plastic – not suitable for this procedure, because under the influence of boiling water the instrument can be deformed.
After bringing the water to a boil, it is poured into a metal watering can, it cools down a little, reaching the desired temperature (80 – 90 o C). The bush is watered without staying in one place longer than 3 – 5 seconds. About 5 liters of boiling water is spent on one plant.
How to water gooseberries with boiling water in spring
Watering gooseberries with boiling water is possible subject to a number of safety rules:
- the person conducting the treatment procedure should protect their hands with thick fabric gloves, since the metal watering can is very hot from boiling water;
- you should check the reliability of fixing the spray nozzle of the watering can – in order to avoid its accidental fall from the spout at the most crucial moment;
- it is necessary to choose the right shoes so that even if boiling water from the watering can gets on it, the legs remain safe;
- care should be taken to ensure that children are not nearby at the time of the procedure.
If the processing time is already overdue – the buds woke up, began to swell, or new leaves are already visible, then it is absolutely impossible to water the plants with boiling water. Heat treatment is carried over to the next year. Otherwise, the bushes and roots can be scalded with boiling water and will inevitably die.
If everything is done correctly and on time, some time after blooming, the bushes are carefully examined. If swollen buds with a tick are found, they are plucked out and disposed of.
Conclusion
People began to pour boiling water over currants and gooseberries in early spring a very long time ago and still use this “old-fashioned” method, despite the huge selection of chemicals. The method is not a XNUMX% remedy that does not destroy diseases and pests once and for all, and requires caution. But the indisputable advantage of the method is its environmental friendliness and purity. A single treatment with boiling water at the beginning of spring actually frees the gardener from worries about the health of gooseberries and currants throughout the season.
