Repairs means the ability to repeatedly bloom and bear fruit during one growing season. Those who want to grow remontant varieties of strawberries on their site should remember that the total seasonal yield from the bush in such varieties is usually lower than that of ordinary strawberries (garden strawberries).
The advantage of repairing strawberries in the other - growing such varieties on your site, you can enjoy aromatic berries not only in May and June, but the whole season until frosts. It sounds tempting, does not it?
In this article, we'll talk about caring for a patchwork strawberry.
How to grow a remontant strawberry?
Planted strawberries in the same way as usual - in the spring or early autumn. The bed must be prepared beforehand - dig up, cleaned of weeds and fertilized with organic. Seedlings are planted in pre-compacted (not very dense, only to get rid of voids) and watered holes. Young plantings must be treated against pests and diseases.
Spring removes winter shelters from bushes, check the number of surviving plants. All diseased leaves, as well as dead plants are removed.
Caring for a repair strawberry in the summer consists in regular weeding, watering, feeding and combating pests and diseases.
From time to time, the soil in the aisles must be loosened. It is better to do this after each watering or rain, but it is enough and once a week.
It is important to ensure that the roots of strawberries are not denuded. If this happens, fill them with fresh, fertile soil.
Insufficient care immediately affects the berry and bushes - the leaves grow smaller, the shoots become thinner, the berries become small and rare. The reason that the repairing varieties are unable to maintain their yield for a long time without constant care is in the plant's overloading with fruits and continuous laying of new fruit buds.
It is recommended to carry out top dressing of repair strawberries at least once every 10-15 days during the entire period of active vegetation.
In the autumn strawberry bushes should be given two or three times to feel freezing, so that the development of new flower buds ceased. After this, it is necessary to cut off the leaves (not very shortly, so as not to damage the central bud) and cover plants for the winter.
Reproduction of remontant strawberries
Due to intensive fruiting, the repairing strawberry ages very quickly. Literally in the second or third year the bushes are depleted and the beds need updating. That's why it's so important to learn how to reproduce it yourself.
Strawberries can be propagated by seeds or mustaches. For the collection of seeds, large fully ripened berries are used without signs of infection by pests or diseases.
Seeds are sown in January-February, laying them on the surface of moist nutrient soil. Tray with crops should be covered with glass, transparent plastic or film, and put in a bright and warm place.
In order to obtain a powerful mustache, in the second half of the summer it is necessary to cut off all the flowers and peduncles and feed the plants with nitrogen.
The mustache is buried, and after rooting, it is separated from the mother plant and planted on the bed.