About Strawberries Without Secrets (part 2)

2024 Author: Sebastian Paterson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:47

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The experience of growing everyone's favorite berries in the context of risky farming

Strawberry chores in the first half of summer

1. Top dressing with phosphorus fertilizers just before flowering is just scattering superphosphate with subsequent loosening of the soil. Spraying with "Inta-VIR" (or another similar preparation) 5-6 days before flowering to combat the weevil.

3. Mulching the soil to protect the berries from dirt, especially during rains, (to reduce the harmful effects of gray mold). The best material for this mulching is pine needles. But you can also use stale sawdust, bark or straw. And in the absence of all this, cut the black covering material into strips along the width of the rows and spread them along the rows, pressing down along the edges with stones, and throughout the rest of the territory - with pine branches, which, moreover, will frighten off the weevil to some extent.

In extreme cases, ordinary newspapers are also suitable, which need to be carefully laid in two layers and pressed down with the same materials at hand, for example, used for tying apple trees for the winter with spruce branches.

4. Spraying with "Trichodermin" just before flowering.

5. Spraying during flowering of plants with stimulants of fruit formation (this can be "Ovary", "Bud", etc.).

6. Watering from a watering can with boric acid solution to improve pollination directly on flowering plants (10 g of boric acid per bucket of water).

7. Spraying with "Trichodermin" 7 days before the start of intensive harvesting of berries.

8. During the period of intensive formation of berries, if necessary, watering, however, we need it at this time in very rare years.

9. Timely removal and destruction of berries affected by gray rot.

10. At the slightest signs of potassium starvation (this situation usually occurs around the middle of fruiting) - feeding with potassium sulfate (3 tablespoons on top of a bucket of water - pour an average of 800 gram jar under the bush).

11. Timely removal or rooting of the mustache.

12. Removal of weed bushes, i.e. bushes with poor productivity. This should be done exactly at the time of fruiting, because at other times they simply cannot be calculated, because outwardly they can simply “radiate health”.

13. Weeding as needed.

A mustache is too serious

A strawberry mustache is a real garden nightmare. At least from my point of view, there is nothing more exhausting than the monotonous cutting of this very mustache every week. That is why I once came to the conclusion that it is better to plant less strawberries, but take good care of them and get good yields, than take up a lot of space, and then not have time to process everything.

In no case should you pull the plants, stubbornly trying to tear off the mustache. There is a very famous tool for removing them - scissors. Trying to rip off the mustache (rather than trimming it off) can injure the plants, which is certainly not in your best interest. The annual increase in yield with timely removal of the mustache can be, according to the most conservative estimates, up to 50 percent.

After picking berries

Very often one has to observe a very sad picture - having collected a legitimate strawberry harvest, gardeners leave the bushes alone, or rather, they simply forget about them. This can completely deprive yourself of the harvest next year. After all, your task for the second half of the summer is not only to plant a new strawberry bed, but also to take care of the old plantings, which the old beds really, really need. This includes the following activities.

1. Top dressing with complex fertilizer. I usually scatter it between bushes after the rains, which are usually enough at this time.

2. Top dressing with mullein infusion, or better - with a mixture of mullein infusion, bird droppings and complex fertilizer "Giant berry".

3. If you used non-covering material or newspapers as a mulching material, then careful loosening of the entire plantation is required.

4. Closer to autumn - tillage of soil around strawberry bushes with foundation to destroy fungal spores.

For a successful wintering

Strawberries are the least hardy of all berry crops. Its root system is especially sensitive to low temperatures. A short-term decrease in temperature in the root layer to -8 ° C can lead to severe damage.

Therefore, there are a number of factors that can significantly increase the percentage of plants that survived cold winter:

• the formation of well-leafed plants by autumn; for this, in late summer - early autumn, strawberries are no longer cleaned from old leaves; as a result, old leaves together with young ones form a good protective carpet;
• the presence of a thick layer of mulching material;
• the formation of sufficient snow cover is a necessary condition for the successful wintering of strawberries; the accumulation of snow is facilitated by work on snow retention - for this it is enough just to sketch pine or spruce branches in the aisles.

Establishment of a new plantation

In theory, strawberry plants can live up to 20 years or more. And messages about strawberry plantations - champions appear in periodicals. Maybe not every variety is suitable for such experiments, or some other factors play a role here, but I have repeatedly observed a sharp decline in yield after 4-5 years of fruiting.

The reason for this was the gradual dying off of the plant root system, and, as a consequence, the deterioration of their nutrition. This also automatically led to a decrease in the number of horns, the size of the fruit and a decrease in the yield. In addition, pathogens and pests accumulated in the soil. It makes no sense to care for such a plantation.

Therefore, periodically (more precisely, every year) it is necessary to establish a new strawberry plantation. Naturally, it is advisable to have on the site along the ridge (two or three, depending on your appetites) of different ages in order to regulate the amount of annually harvested crop and not stay in some summer "on beans".

When establishing a new plantation, it is advisable to observe certain "rules of the game". In this case, you can get a harvest from new plantings at an earlier date and a larger volume.

When planting a new strawberry, you need to remember that …

1. It is necessary to lay a new ridge in a new place, ie. on an area where strawberries have not grown for at least 3-4 years.

2. In the Urals, the second half of July is the best time for planting young plants, because before the September cold snaps, the rosettes should root well and prepare for the harsh winter (it should be borne in mind that at temperatures below + 7oС degrees, the root system completely stops growing) … The size of the first harvest will directly depend on how timely you carry out this work. Although in theory strawberries can be planted throughout the season, from spring to the end of August, remember that strawberries planted in spring will not yield this year. As well as planted closer to autumn, it will not provide you with a harvest next year.

3. The more fertile soil you set aside for a new plantation, the stronger and stronger the plants will grow, and, consequently, the greater the harvest awaits you. And problems with feeding in the first year can be avoided, which is also important. I lay young strawberries on the former carrot-beet-garlic-onion ridges, and humus was intensively introduced under them for several years. Therefore, I no longer add any additional fertilizers when planting. If the soil is not fertile enough, then 1-2 buckets of compost per 1m2 of the area of the future strawberry ridge will obviously be needed. It can give good yields only on sufficiently cultivated, loose and breathable soil with a humus content of at least 1.5-2% and an acidity of 5.0-5.5 pN. On soils with insufficient acidity for strawberries (pH value above 6.0), the soil is acidified,adding peat or coniferous needles to the beds.

4. Do not forget that you should not plant strawberries in areas where water stagnates in spring. This is a direct path to plant damping and death. If there are no options, then you will have to arrange high fenced ridges under it. True, in this case there is a risk of death of plants from freezing if the areas are not covered with snow in time.

The basics of a successful landing

In general, planting strawberry seedlings is not particularly difficult. Everything is very simple: prepare the hole, carefully spread the roots in different directions, squeeze them a little with earth (without filling the "heart") and water well. It may be necessary before planting, if the soil is not fertile enough, add a little humus and fertilizer "Giant berry" or "Universal" (in their absence, any other complex fertilizer will do). To be honest, I don’t put any fertilizers into the planting holes in principle - I prefer to plant immediately in the soil rich in nutrients and humus.

As for the landing method itself, then there are options: among the most common are one-line and two-line landing patterns. From the point of view of saving space, a two-line landing is more profitable, but, in principle, everything depends on specific conditions. An example of the distance for a two-line fit is shown in the figure. The distances between the paired rows are relative and largely depend on the characteristics of the variety, as well as on the cultivation technology (for example, from how many years you replace the ridge - after 3-4-5 years). In principle, it is permissible to plant strawberries in the aisles of a young garden (up to about 8 years old), provided that the bushes are placed at a distance of more than 1 m from the tree boles.

However, in any case, when determining distances, the following points should be considered:

• with light shading, it is better to plant bushes less often, and in the sun it is possible more often;
• with a three-year strawberry turnover, bushes are planted more often; at 4-5 years old - less often;
• on very fertile soil, when the bushes grow more intensively and faster, you need to plant them less often;
• when planting, one must be guided by the peculiarities of the development of a particular variety; strongly leafy plants are planted less often, and slightly leafy plants are planted denser;
• it is necessary to plant so that after 2-3 years, excessive thickening does not affect the fruiting of strawberries and the degree of damage to its diseases.

The planted plants are immediately watered with a solution of black yeast or a solution of huminates so that the plants endure stress as painlessly as possible. It is better to mulch them immediately after planting with a thin layer of sawdust or other suitable material. After that, if the seedlings were not in pots, and damage to the root system did occur, the planting is tightened with a covering material. When a mustache begins to grow in plants, they, as in other plantings, are removed. Once every 10 days, the beds are carefully loosened, watered if necessary.

In the future, in the year of planting, I do not feed young plants with anything, guided by the fact that the prepared soil contains in abundance all the nutrients necessary for the initial growth. But if you are not sure about the fertility of the soil, then after the start of active plant growth during August, you can carry out a series of 2-3 dressings with a weak solution of complex fertilizer and 2 dressings with a weak solution of mullein, alternating them with each other. By the beginning of September, all feeding should be stopped to allow the plants to prepare for the harsh winter.

What seedlings should be taken for planting

Seedlings are considered good if the plant has at least three developed leaves, a strong heart and a well-developed root system (at least 6-7 cm long). The leaves should be on short, not long, petioles. This fact suggests that the seedlings grew with sufficient light and did not experience any inconvenience. Long petioles indicate strongly thickened plantings. Plants growing from such seedlings are distinguished by lower potential strength and endurance, and, therefore, are not able to form a large crop, and, perhaps, even survive during the winter.

Ideal if you are planting your own seedlings. Indeed, provided that it is formed in pots, the roots of plants will not be injured, and the plants, quite possibly, will not notice moving to a new place.