Any person should learn how to care for strawberries. It is difficult to overestimate the valuable qualities of these amazing berries, which are among the first garden crops. On the market, they appear earlier, attracting a commercial look and aroma, but only home products can be 100% useful and safe.
How to care for strawberries?
The ripening of the first commercial product of aromatic berries comes in warm regions at the end of May. Time for amateur gardeners for the implementation of full-fledged care for strawberries a bit, any delay with fertilizing, watering or other activities leads to a decrease in the quality of the crop, affects the appearance of juicy fruits. Research centers and simple enthusiasts constantly care about updating the assortment of varieties, so dacha farmers and farmers need to know exactly the characteristics of the acquired bushes, their biological characteristics.
If old varieties of strawberries in cultivation and care differed little, then modern bush can be distinguished by unique properties associated with the duration of fruiting or the ability to lay berries during the season on young lashes. For those wishing to use this culture for decorative purposes, lovers of getting a fragrant crop until late autumn, every year many interesting novelties are displayed.
Ampelic strawberry - care and cultivation
A distinctive feature of care for strawberry ampel varieties is the possibility of simultaneous fruiting of bushes on green mustache. If you buy a remodeling variety for an apartment or a greenhouse that grows well under limited light, you will consume fresh berries for a long season until the beginning of a snowy winter. Care for ampel strawberries has a variety of options. It is grown on a bed, with the help of vertical supports, in the form of flowering plants.
Promising varieties of ampel strawberries:
- Repaired,
- Finland,
- Queen Elizabeth II,
- Alba,
- Geneva,
- Moscow delicacy,
- Osatra,
- Elsanta.
Curly strawberry - care and cultivation
With regard to this strawberry, there are many legends and speculations related to the mass sale to fans of unproductive advertised varieties of incomprehensible breeding. This culture by its nature can not independently climb the shoots along the vertical support like hops or grapes, so do not believe the scammers. An excellent way is to care for the curling strawberries on a vertical bed. For high formation, ampel varieties with long to 1.5 m antennae are used.
On the support of the berry is not affected by rot, at the height of the fruits are not accessible to slugs, bushes take up little space. It is easiest to install it in a barrel or a plastic pipe filled with soil, with cut round holes up to 6 cm in diameter for plants. Inside the structure, a smaller metal tube should be laid to supply water. Care for strawberries is better organized in the sun near the fence or the wall of the house, here it will serve as an excellent decoration of the site.
Varieties of strawberries for curly formations:
- Sakhalin,
- Herzberg,
- Ada,
- San Rival,
- Ostara,
- Eros,
- Kletter Star 2002,
- Frapendula.
Care for a patch of strawberries
Unlike varieties with a single fruit, the patch of strawberry is able to please the grower with berries two or more times a year. This is due to the ability of this species to lay the buds of fruiting at a long or neutral light day. If caring for strawberries is normal, then most varieties yield the first harvest in July (up to 40% of the total number of berries), and the second (maximum) in September-August.
Care for strawberries patchwork has features. It grows faster and requires constant replacement of seedlings every 2-3 seasons, even large-bush bushes quickly lose their yields over the years. New seedlings are grown from the mustaches of mother plants, their replacement is made at the end of the season before the arrival of frost. In business, how correctly to look after strawberries of repairing grades, there are no big difficulties. Having adjusted correctly on the accelerated 2-3-year cycle of cultivation, it is possible to receive plentiful berries crops all the warm season.
Varieties of remontant strawberries:
- Queen Elizabeth II,
- Temptation,
- Monterey,
- Diamond,
- Moscow delicacy,
- San Andreas,
- Evie 2,
- Albion.
Proper care of strawberries
This amazing and valuable culture can grow on almost any soil, except for swamps and dry sands. The roots of the bush are located at shallow depths of up to 20 cm, ground water at a depth of more than 70 cm can damage them. That any large-bodied plant variety, for example Giantella strawberries, when yielding and growing yields excellent crops, it is better to plant it on a separate bed or between rows in a young garden.
Methods of reproduction of strawberries:
- Reproduction by seeds is a laborious method that is used primarily by breeders. Suitable for strawberry-free strawberries, the cultivation and care of which is associated with complexities. Seeds are obtained from cut peeled berries, which are dried and ground.
- Reproduction of strawberries by bush division - is used when there is a shortage of planting material. Young plants are unsuitable for this, you can cut the roots of 3-4 years of age.
- Reproduction by whiskers is an easy and quick way to grow strawberries, the most popular in home gardening. It is advisable to take the first 2-3 tendrils for work, and remove the remaining shoots. Care for strawberries obtained from the antennae, simple, but requires increased care for the seedlings until complete adaptation in the garden.
Spring care for strawberries
Work on beds should begin with cleaning the top layer of soil from weeds and pests. Completely remove the soil to a thickness of several centimeters can not, so we make a thorough loosening of the land between the bushes to a depth of 8 cm. In the case, how to care for strawberries in the spring, it is important to get rid of foci of infection. Remove completely dry, blackened or yellowed leaves with hibernating spores of harmful fungi.
Care for blooming strawberries
The appearance of the first flowers blooms gardeners, but it is required to continue to carry out care for strawberries on time, performing the whole complex of measures for growing a delicious berry to get a full harvest. The work plan includes fertilizing plants, watering, removing part of the foliage, loosening the soil. Extra prongs with a secateur cut and carried from the site, this method helps to maintain the forces that will go to the formation of fruits.
You can help pollinate plants during the flowering period to increase the number of berries. For this purpose, spoon a natural honey in 1 liter of water and spray the solution on a bed, attracting bees. This event helps with frequent rains, fogs, intense heat or cold. The second way is to carefully carry out a soft brush of fluff on the flowers at lunchtime to transfer the pollen from one bush to another. Caring for strawberries after flowering is loosening the soil, watering, removing weeds and harvesting.
Caring for strawberries after fruiting
Many beginners, having collected tasty fruits, forget about plants. We can not tolerate the overgrowing of the garden with weeds, the seeds of harmful plants will bloom, pollinate and densely spring next spring. Some truck farmers mow down the old foliage, but this option is fraught with danger. It is possible, together with the green mass, to lose the rudiments of young leaves, which leads to poor wintering and a deterioration of fruiting. Care for strawberries in the country is best done with a pruner, gently cutting unnecessary tendrils and dying leaf plates, without damaging the kidneys.
Caring for strawberries in autumn
Weeding and loosening of rows is continued until the onset of cold weather. Often the rhizome is bare, worsening the condition of the bushes. Autumn care for strawberries consists in hilling for normal regrowth of the accessory roots. Nourishing soil poured near the bushes, not falling asleep in the process of fertilizing the "heart". Pruning strawberries begin in August. From the beginning of September cardinally shear plants can not be removed, only severely damaged and damaged leaf plates are removed.
In cold regions, plants require protection from frost. If the snow cover is weak, and the colds fall to critical temperatures, then many species become freezing. In the care helps to shelter strawberry foliage or a straw layer of 5 cm or more. It is desirable to close the land in the aisles, maximally protecting the roots and plants from the cold, minimizing the risk of loss of the harvest of delicious berries.
Feeding of strawberries
Without fertile soil, it is impossible to obtain a high-quality strawberry, in the spring, nursing with fertilizing helps the plant gather strength for pollination and tying of large berries, and in autumn fertilizers have a significant effect on tying the buds of the next crop. There are several schemes for the introduction of nutrients during the growing season. Under the bush poured from 0.5 liters to 1 liter of diluted in water fertilizers.
Top dressing of strawberries in spring after snow melting:
- A solution of 1 tbsp. ammonium sulfate and 2 cups of Mullein on a bucket of water.
- Top dressing with a solution of Mullein in a ratio of 1:10.
- Top dressing with a solution of chicken manure in the proportion 1:12.
Fertilizer strawberries after harvest:
- A solution of nitrosfos (2 tablespoons) and potassium sulfate (1 tea) in a bucket of water.
- Dissolve 100 g of ash to a bucket of water.
- A solution of potassium nitrate (2 tablespoons) on a bucket of water.
Top-dressing of strawberries in late autumn:
- A solution of Mullein and water (1:10) with the addition of half a glass of ash.
- An integrated solution of mineral fertilizers. A bucket of water requires nitroammophoska (2 liters), potassium sulfate (30 g) and 1 glass of ash.
Irrigation of strawberry
In order not to get small and dry berries, you need to regularly water vegetative shrubs. Strawberry requires planting and grooming outdoors in a sunny place, but it does not like complete drying of the soil. On loose soils it is necessary to give up to 12 liters per 1 m 2 of soil under irrigation, and up to 14 liters per 1 m2 on clay soils. It is advisable to use a warm liquid in the morning hours. During heavy rains, watering is stopped, in the heat they are produced in a week up to 3-4 times.
How to care for strawberries - transplant
It is best to produce these works at the end of summer, during a warm season the plants manage to take root well. In areas with an unstable cold climate, it is difficult to choose a good time for strawberries, a spring transplant and caring for young bushes is made in such regions immediately after the snow falls. Sprouts rootlets after dipping are dipped in a moulder, cutting to a length of up to 8 cm. In a row, a distance of 70-80 cm can be maintained, between plants up to 25 cm. With a square-socket method, 50x50 cm are adhered to the scheme. It is strictly forbidden to fill the strawberry's heart when planting.