In advance, taking care of sheltering the strawberry bushes from winter frosts, you will help her to winter in the next season and again to please you with delicious berries. Today there are several options for shelter, so choosing what to hide strawberries from frost for the winter is not so simple. Let's understand.
The better to cover strawberries for the winter from frosts?
Immediately it is worth mentioning that the strawberry requires shelter already in the cold to -10 ° C, otherwise it can freeze and die. And in order to be in time, you need to prepare in advance for the protection of its roots and the above-ground surface from the advancing cold.
As protection of roots is feeding with organic fertilizers and mulching. To begin to prepare a strawberry for wintering it is necessary already from the middle of autumn, as soon as the earth freezes to 4-5 cm. It is not necessary to do this earlier, because a strawberry can die.
A natural blanket for sheltering strawberries is the snow cover. That is, you can simply collect snow from the rest of the plot and cover them with your strawberry. But if in your region winters are snowless or snow melts quickly due to temperature spikes, you need to take care of another shelter.
So, what can be covered strawberries for the winter: often for this use spruce lapnik, sawdust, dry branches, hay, leaves. Also welcome is the use of synthetic materials such as agrofibre, spandbond.
If you decide to cover the strawberry with foliage, make sure that the fallen leaves are not affected by the diseases, as they can go to the strawberry. With straw, too, one must be extremely cautious, since rodents often live in it, and strawberries may break up during periods of warming in straw due to high humidity.
It is optimal to cover the strawberry with needles and spruce lapnik. This shelter is good for air and never becomes a home for rodents. On the same question, whether it is possible to cover the strawberry for the winter for the winter, the answer will be extremely negative. From the leaves, strawberry leaves are banned, especially in the spring. In addition, this rod now and then will look at rodents, because they will than profit.
Technology of sheltering strawberries for the winter
The so-called mulching strawberries with sawdust is quite common. Sawdust serves not only as a covering material, but also as a fertilizer.
The best sawdust for mulching strawberries are those that were obtained when sawing deciduous trees, although coniferous sawdust is useful in that in the spring they protect the beds from weeds. However, when the spring heat comes, the sawdust should be removed to prevent acidification of the soil.
So, how to properly cover strawberries for winter with sawdust? First, the beds should be weeded and loosened, then the newspapers should be bedded so that they overlap, and the mulch does not fall on the soil. The newspapers need to pour out a layer of sawdust. In spring, the removed mulch can be sent to the compost pit for ripening and subsequent use as a fertilizer.
And since recently it has become popular to use synthetic non-woven materials for covering many cultures, let's look at how to properly cover strawberries for winter with agrofiber.
The thickness of the shelter layer should be at least 6-8 cm - this will protect the bushes from the cold in the event that little snow falls in winter. For a winter shelter, strawberries are used with agrofiber with a density of 17-30 g. You can simply cover a bed of strawberries with several layers of non-woven fabric or build a small structure with arch supports.
In the spring, with the onset of the first warm days, agrofibers will need to be opened slightly for a while to let the strawberry "breathe", and at night, when there is still the danger of spring frosts, again to cover the beds.