First seasonal berries! And what a flavorful and juicy, sweet and beautiful! The benefits of this berry also all heard. And vitamin C in it more than the lemon. And the calcium in milk, and antioxidants in green tea ... Useful and tasty, interesting both for cooking and for gardeners - no wonder it has become a popular culture of our country sites!
Incidentally, the strawberries are very often (and erroneously) called strawberry. Although strawberries and strawberry higher, and leaves her lighter and smaller berries. But here's the big difference in the cultivation is observed. Strawberry or strawberry - planting and caring for them are virtually identical. Therefore, we will not find out all the subtleties of botanical and talk about common rules for these berries growing.
How to grow strawberries on your site (strawberries)? Consider the features of planting and care, guaranteeing excellent crop of strawberries or strawberry (as we call it).
What will be the key to a good harvest? Correctly chosen variety, well prepared place, competent planting and caring treatment. So ...
Choose grade
Varieties of strawberries and strawberries in abundance. Breeders here have worked on glory! What did not offer us the garden centers and nurseries. The berries of different ripening, different sizes, different yields of different shapes and tastes. There unambiguous advice to give is simply impossible. Each variety has its own advantages. It is best to choose to grow in the garden of released varieties. They are most suited to the climatic conditions of specific regions. Further, it should focus on its own goals and preferences. Choose a variety of ripening times, the yield, the degree of sweetness of the berries.
You can certainly buy elite varieties in nurseries. But it is worth doing only for experienced gardeners. If you just start to realize their gardening hobby, then opted for local varieties. With them and the hassle and less risk.
But no matter what grade you choose, take the cultivation of strawberries is in good faith.
Prepare the landing site
First, this is the place to choose. For planting strawberries are best suited slightly acid or neutral soil. A Place in the flower bed should be sunny and flat. However, the gentle south-western slopes is also suited for strawberry plantations. Strawberry nemorozoustoychiva well winters only under the snow. So choose for her landing place is not to accumulate cold air and blows the snow. Not suitable for strawberries and humid place.
Before the device beds treat the soil with ammonium nitrate (200 g per 1 sq. M) and any herbicides.
For the strawberry patch dig the ground, loosen it with pitchforks and rakes flatten. Dig up flower bed sprinkle two-centimetric layer of sand. This will create uncomfortable conditions for the appearance (and stay) in your strawberry snails and slugs.
Choose a planting time
Strawberries can be planted from early spring until autumn. In the spring, at the beginning of the summer season - the sooner the better (depending on climate). In the fall need to have time to plant strawberries for two or three weeks before the first frost (also depending on the region).
The best time for planting seedlings purchased - it is spring (beginning in mid-July). It is desirable to put in cloudy weather. A clear and hot weather - in the evening. If you sit strawberry mustache, then it should be done after a full mustache ripe - from late July to September. Digs each outlet with a large lump of earth. Such a change would be less traumatic for the strawberries.
Seeds are sown at home (or in the greenhouse) in February-March (together with other sprouts). In the opening portion seedlings from seeds planted in May. You can grow the seedlings, and in the summer (in the garden under the film). Young bushes seated on a permanent place in August.
Choose a way of planting
There are three types of planting material for the strawberry patch:
- Sprouts (mustache)
- delenki the adult bush,
- seeds.
If you do not set out to grow something unique, it is a suitable material for your strawberry plantations are young rosettes. They appear in numerous mustache mature plants. Such mustache you'll find in abundance at their (or neighborhood) beds. Usually mustache terminated. But for reproduction leave them in the most strong and productive bushes.
Another possibility is planting strawberries - division. In this way, often propagated strawberry mustache. A strong and healthy shrub is divided into several parts, which are then planted in the new beds.
To grow remontant strawberries and seeds are used. This planting strawberries is also suitable for rare or unusual varieties. In addition, this method guarantees a healthy crop. But planting strawberry seeds very time-consuming method. From sowing to the first harvest it takes a long time. So this method is suitable either very patient or very enthusiastic gardeners. Most prefer not particularly burdensome approach and quick crop. Therefore, we are planting strawberries on their plots often seedlings from the whiskers.
Cooking the seedlings
Strawberry (strawberry) has an insidious feature. Most fruiting bushes give a little mustache. But lush green and generous mustache items on which I want to nip off and mustache, stingy on berries. Therefore, a mustache is better to take from less than lush, but more productive plants.
Outlets need to choose the largest (the greater the bush, the larger berries on it). Learn to distinguish a genetically small mustache from another nevyzrevshie (and therefore smaller). Genetically small true leaves have already formed at the roots. Second in the roots of its modest dimensions do not yet have. That such a mustache is quite possible to grow high-yielding plants.
If you are using a planting strawberry rooted rosettes, they should be carefully digging a small lump of earth and immediately transplanted to a new location.
Purchase of seedlings before planting should be rinsed. To do this, prepare a solution of three tablespoons of salt, one teaspoon of copper sulphate and 10 liters of water. Soak seedlings in it for 10-15 minutes and then rinse with clean water.
Prick off
The beds are planted outlet with three or four leaves. Bushes planted in the hole at a distance of 25-30 cm. The distance between rows - from 60 to 90 cm. It is important to heart wall outlet (place leaf growth) is flush with the ground. Otherwise, bush or rots or dries. To the roots are well dealt, you can fill in the hole and mound it planted seedlings prisypaya ground.
After planting, water the strawberries should be immediately. The first two days bushes need to be protected from the sun (cover pieces of paper). Then, for a week, two or three times a day to water from a watering can (to seedlings well received). Then it will be enough to pour a new flower bed once a week. If you suddenly decide to young bushes bloom, the flower stalks should be removed (all the time).
In August, a bed with a young strawberry underfur need a couple of times, and in October zamulchirovat. Properly planted seedlings for the winter has become a strong and bushy shrubs that will provide them with a good wintering and first harvest.
Caring for strawberries
They say "what goes around, comes around." For the cultivation of strawberries of "seeding" a little. This berry is quite capricious, and require constant attention and care. There are general rules of competent care for strawberries. In general, they are reduced to weeding and watering.
Watering. No watering will not be a good harvest. In the summer garden bed with strawberries dries quickly. Therefore, it is best zamulchirovat. For this fit the hay mown lawn grass, sawdust. Decomposition between bushes mulch to retain moisture and will prevent the berries from rot.
Weeds. Of course, the weeds are not mortal enemies of strawberries - after all she came out of the woods, where it grows in the grass. But they can affect the quality of the crop. Therefore, if you want to grow large and juicy berries, weeding, alas, is necessary. Despite the fact that strawberries very well suppress weeds, you need to remove the grass in between the rows, and in the bushes.
Old leaves. We need to constantly pick strawberries reddening leaves. Thus the bushes will be rejuvenated. It is also desirable to carry out a radical and rejuvenation. To do this, after 3 weeks after picking berries mow all the foliage. For what? To stimulate growth, the exemption from infections and pests of settlement. Actually, mowing can not be called a necessary measure. But in some cases, it can not hurt. And certainly, no harm from it will not.
After mowing and harvesting of foliage is desirable to treat the lobes bushes against diseases and pests, and strawberries to feed fertilizers.
With fertilizers need to be careful. With an excess of nitrogen fertilizers (such as manure) on your garden beds turn green large bushes with small berries. So better just before planting to make a small amount of compost or rotted manure. A use as feeding ash.
Strawberry "rotation"
For the literate strawberry growing on the site, note the following.
The following summer after planting (the first year of fruiting) strawberry yields a good, but not the highest yield.
Vintage-repetition is the most abundant: the berries are many and large.
In the third year of fruiting berries are slightly smaller, but the yield is not reduced. This happens in the fourth year: the harvest is lower and berries shrinking.
So after three harvests (four years in the same place) strawberries removed.
So, for a good harvest and a permanent need to have three beds of strawberries: first, second and third year of fruiting. New strawberries, it is desirable not to plant where it has grown. Who is under the strawberries can be no earlier than three or four seasons.
That such simple and certainly useful tips to help you grow your site to this wonderful, delicious, beautiful and useful berry. Attach a silent patience, diligence, knowledge - and the success of your strawberry-strawberry "plantation" will be provided!
