Ah, those sweet aromatic strawberries. How nice it is to feast on ripe berries, you can prepare them for future use by boiling jam, rubbing with sugar or making compotes. All the subtleties of planting, growing this crop are in the article. The content of the article:
- Strawberry varieties
- Growing strawberries from seeds
- Preparing a place for strawberries
- Planting strawberries with a mustache
- How to care for strawberries
- Diseases, pests of strawberries and methods of dealing with them
The strawberries must be planted first. If you want to get your varietal material that is not infected with any viral infections, try growing bushes from seeds. If you buy remontant seeds, you can harvest from late spring to mid-fall (depending on climatic conditions).
Strawberry varieties
According to varietal characteristics, strawberries are: remontant; giving 1 harvest per season; small-fruited.
Repaired varieties allow you to get several harvests per season. One of the best representatives of this group is the Elizaveta 2 variety. Large heart-shaped berries can be picked three times over the summer - in June, July, August. If it's a warm autumn, then you can feast on berries even in October.
Berries "of" Albion "are slightly smaller, they are conical, pointed in shape. The uniqueness of this new variety is that the harvest is harvested from May to autumn frosts. The berries have a rich taste and bright aroma. This is also a remontant strawberry.
Of the species that give a bountiful harvest once a season, varieties can be distinguished:
- "Gigantella";
- "Karpatka";
- Zenga-Zengana;
- "Lord";
- "Honey".
Small-fruited strawberries (strawberries):
- Tsunari;
- Baron Munchausen;
- Ruyana;
- "Alexandria";
- "Yellow Miracle".
The last three varieties are easy to grow from seed.
Growing strawberries from seeds
You can grow not only regular strawberries, but also garden strawberries. The principle of planting seeds and caring for them is the same. Work starts quite early. In the middle lane - this is the end of January - the first half of February.
Wash the container well, pour seedling soil into it. It is very important to purchase special soil for growing strawberries. This one is sold in shops for gardeners and is also suitable for sowing seeds of tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, since these plants belong to the same group.
Heat water to a boil, put 3-4 crystals of potassium permanganate in it, stir. The solution should be deep pink. Pour the hot solution over the soil in a box, let it cool, and plant the strawberry seeds about 5 mm apart. Gently press them to the soil with your fingertips, do not cover them with earth. Cover the container with glass or transparent cellophane.
Strawberry seeds will germinate in the light in a warm place, where the temperature is +25 - +28 ° С
When shoots appear, slightly lower the temperature to +23 - +25 ° С. During seed germination, make sure that there is no strong condensation. If the glass is covered with water droplets from the inside, open it slightly.
After emergence, do not completely remove the film, glass. Open them slightly only on the back of the window. Observe moderation in watering, otherwise still weak seedlings can be struck by a dangerous disease "black leg". Spray plants from a spray bottle with lukewarm boiled water only as the soil dries up.
After 30-35 days, plant seedlings less often, and after another 25, plant each plant in a separate pot with a diameter of 5-6 cm.
After the end of late spring frosts, strawberry seedlings are planted in a garden bed.
Preparing a place for strawberries
Like many plants, this culture loves a sunny place where there are no drafts, cold winds. The soil should be of good moisture and air permeability, fertile. Strawberries grow in one place for 3-4 years. During this time, the bed is not dug up, therefore, in order to suppress the growth of weeds, first spread a film on the ridge, make holes in it, and then plant bushes.
The optimal bed width is 60 cm
After you have dug up the soil well, lay a film on it. Put weighting materials around the perimeter - stones, iron pipes. If you want to grow strawberries on a large scale, first put a hose for the drip irrigation system in the middle of the ridge, and put a dark film on top, it looks beautiful silver-black. You can buy one with the holes already made. If not, they can be easily cut with scissors. The distance between round holes in a row is 35, and between rows is 35-40 cm. Plant the bushes in a checkerboard pattern.
Put half a teaspoon of complete mineral fertilizer or special for strawberries in each well and be sure to mix it with the soil. Pour 1-2 handfuls of humus there. This will provide the plants with food for 3 years.
Spill the holes. If you are planting seedlings, carefully remove the bush from the pot. So that the soil does not crumble from the roots, moderately water the soil in a glass 4 hours before planting. If it's soft, press down on the sides and bottom before planting, and then gently flip it over onto your hand. In this case, the leaves will be between the middle and index fingers. Plant the bush in a permanent place to the point of growth, compact the earth around it with your palms. Cover with non-woven material until survival.
Planting strawberries with a mustache
This is one of the most economical and easiest ways. The main thing is to select good planting material. To do this, even at the beginning - the middle of summer, look at which bushes of your strawberries have the largest berries and there are many of them. Mark these bushes by placing signs or pegs next to them.
When the mustache begins to grow, leave 3-4 mustache on each marked bush. Only the first shoot is needed, so pinch the growing point after it. Using a hairpin, place the mustache closer to the ground and poke it with light soil. Water as needed to get them rooting faster.
When the whiskers grow well, take root, in late August - early September they begin to plant them. First, use scissors to cut off the long section of the mustache that connects it to the mother bush. Then dig it out with a spatula so that the soil on the roots does not crumble. To do this, work on wet soil, make outlines with a spatula, first on three sides, and dig out from the fourth.
Plant in a permanent place in the same way as you did for seedlings.
How to care for strawberries
If you have filled the garden well by adding mineral and organic fertilizers, then you do not need to fertilize the strawberries in the first year after planting. In the second year in spring, when the leaves begin to grow, feed the bushes with nitrogen fertilizer. It can be a solution of manure and water in a ratio of 1:10 or poultry droppings in a ratio of 1:20. When the rudiments of the first peduncles appear, repeat the feeding, adding 1 tablespoon of water to 10 liters of water. double superphosphate and a glass of wood ash. Avoid getting fertilizer on the leaves, spill only the soil around the bush.
If a film is spread on the bed, then it is not necessary to loosen the soil and remove weeds, since they will not grow under it. The film helps to retain moisture, so watering is often unnecessary.
If you have an ordinary ridge, periodically loosen the aisles, uproot the weeds. At the beginning of growth, the ball needs frequent watering. When the berries begin to sing, cut them back. If the humidity is high, the taste of the berries will become sour. Therefore, sometimes during prolonged rains, arcs are placed on the ridge and a film is laid on them. This will save the crop from the disease called "gray rot". If the peduncles lie not on the ground, but on the film, then this disease also does not threaten the berries.
Cut off unnecessary mustache in time so that the strawberry bush spends its energy not on them, but on the formation of berries. When fruiting is over, you need to process the strawberries. Cut off yellow, reddish and diseased leaves, sprinkle with humus under the bushes. Feed them potassium-phosphorus fertilizer. To do this, put a glass of ash, 2 tablespoons in 10 liters of hot water. double superphosphate, insist for a day.
When expecting frosty winters with little snow, cover the plantings with straw, dry grass, spruce branches. Remove shelters on time in the spring.
Diseases, pests of strawberries and methods of dealing with them
In rainy summers, slugs damage the berries. You can collect them manually and destroy them. You can scatter hot spices around the bushes - mustard, ground hot peppers or special preparations that help fight this pest.
As mentioned above, in order to prevent gray rot, it is necessary to reduce watering when the berries begin to ripen. Make sure they do not lie on the ground. If the bushes do not grow on a film, put pieces of old linoleum, boards under the berries. If you do not have time to do this, and the disease has spread, collect all damaged fruits. At the same time, do not touch healthy berries and stop watering these beds for a while. Pour fresh sawdust into the aisles. When the entire crop is harvested, treat the plantation with a 1% solution of Bordeaux liquid or copper oxychloride, placing 2 tbsp. of this substance, the same amount of liquid soap in a bucket of water.
The following method will help you deal with strawberry spotting
If you see red spots on the leaves, treat the plant by dissolving 30 copper oxychloride in 8 liters of water during the beginning of budding, and then after another 10 days. If the disease persists, after harvesting, cut the leaves, leaving the core. By the fall, new ones will grow.
To prevent powdery mildew, before flowering, treat the plantation with Topaz fungicide by dissolving 1 ampoule in a bucket of water. You can dilute 100 g of colloidal sulfur in 10 liters of water and spray the plants for the first time at the beginning of budding, and the second time after harvesting.
Video about the installation of drip irrigation for growing strawberries:
The rest of the videos about growing strawberries:
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