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In recent years, many additional opportunities have opened up for gardeners to diversify the usual methods and methods of growing traditional crops. Strawberries or garden strawberries were no exception. Appeared first remontant varieties that made it possible to enjoy tasty and healthy berries almost throughout the year. And then suddenly the so-called climbing strawberry, the pictures of which amazed even experienced gardeners. But there are no climbing varieties of strawberries - ampelous strawberries, which are only a popular variety of remontant strawberries, are a completely different matter. Caring for ampelous strawberries is the subject of this article.
Ampel strawberries - what does it mean?
There are varieties of strawberries that are capable of not only forming quite a lot of long tendrils, but also forming flowering and fruiting rosettes on them even without contact with the soil. These rosettes, in turn, also produce whiskers with rosettes.
Due to this, by the time the first berries begin to ripen on the mother plant, the first buds can already form on the daughter rosettes.
If you plant such varieties in a tall flowerpot or hanging pot and hang all the shoots down, then you will get an excellent-looking hanging strawberry. In general, the word “ampel” is translated from German as a hanging vase. Therefore, hanging strawberries are more a way of growing and forming plants than a specific type of strawberry.
It is the remontant varieties of strawberries that are most often used as overhead, since they allow you to extend the fruiting period from late spring until autumn. All this time, flowerpots or baskets with hanging strawberries will be able to decorate your site.
Most often, these strawberries are used for growing at home, on balconies or terraces. Sometimes they even sacrifice fruiting for the sake of decorativeness - after all, if the extra tendrils of strawberries are not trimmed, then the mother bushes will not be able to cope with such a load and will not be able to force absolutely all the emerging rosettes to bloom and produce berries. But a lush cascade of greenery is guaranteed in any case.
Growing from seeds
If you are thinking about how to grow a large number of seedlings of ampelous strawberries at once for yourself or for sale, then you can remember the method of growing them from seeds. This method allows you to get a lot of good healthy seedlings in a short time, which will be able to produce berries already in the current season, provided that they are sowed early. In addition, when propagated by whiskers for a long time, there is a danger of viral diseases accumulating in the bushes, and in most cases they are not transmitted through seeds.
If you buy seeds in a retail chain, you must not forget that strawberry seeds remain viable for a very short time. Therefore, it is strongly recommended to sow them in the year of purchase, otherwise the germination rate may drop several times.
Sowing the seeds of ampelous strawberries should be done in January or, in extreme cases, in February.
A properly selected substrate is very important for growing strawberries with seeds. It should be very light and breathable, because the seeds of the berries are small and under no circumstances should they be buried in the ground. They germinate only on the surface in the light.
Usually a special peat soil is used, which is mixed well with fine coconut fiber. A thin layer of calcined river sand is poured on top. Sometimes when sowing strawberry seeds, the following technique is used - the surface of the soil for sowing is covered with a small layer of snow, and the seeds are carefully laid out on top. When the snow melts, it will pull the seeds with it, and they will be both moistened and pressed to the soil.
The crops are covered with film or glass on top and placed in a bright, warm place (about +25°C). Crops must be ventilated daily, removing glass or film for 5-10 minutes. Seeds can begin to germinate in as little as 7 days, but sometimes some take up to 15-20 days. After germination, the container with the crops is placed in the most illuminated place, where the duration of daylight hours is at least 12 hours a day.
The seedlings continue to be ventilated daily, but the shelter is finally removed only when the first two true leaves open on the strawberry seedlings.
Water the seedlings very sparingly with a syringe or using a pipette, since excessive soil moisture can lead to an outbreak of blackleg disease.
Picking seedlings of ampelous strawberries is usually carried out a month after emergence, planting them in separate small containers. By this time, the seedlings should have at least three true leaves, but they are still small in size. Picking will help speed up the development of plants, so that in May they can be planted in open ground conditions without fear.
Before planting in the ground, strawberry seedlings are fed several more times with complex mineral fertilizer or diluted manure with the addition of wood ash.
If strawberry seeds are planted for seedlings in January, then the first buds and flowers can be seen already in May.
Planting ampelous strawberries
Since ampel strawberries are most often grown in special containers or in a flowerpot, then you need to take special care of the composition of the soil mixture in which it will grow. Typically, peat, humus, leaf and turf soil are used in equal proportions with the addition of river sand. It would be wise to add some hydrogel to the substrate. This is a special substance that, absorbing water when watering, swells, and then, if necessary, is able to release excess moisture to the roots of plants. Since on hot days the soil in any container will dry out quickly, the presence of hydrogel will help the strawberry bushes survive occasional interruptions in watering.
At the bottom of the basket or container in which strawberries are supposed to be grown, a fairly thick layer of drainage is poured - this can be expanded clay, pebbles or pieces of charcoal. Planting ampelous strawberries is carried out in such a way that each bush receives from 1.5 to 3 liters of nutrient soil. Bushes cannot be deepened, especially in the middle of the bush, the so-called growth point, which should be on the surface of the substrate.
Features of care
Planting and caring for hanging strawberries has some features, but they are associated primarily with the conditions of growth and formation of the bushes. Please note the following:
- Watering strawberry bushes must be especially careful; neither drying out nor over-moistening the earthen clod should be allowed. The best option would be to use hydrogel when planting. You can also use drip irrigation systems and planters with built-in humidity control.
- Due to the remontant nature of hanging varieties, strawberry bushes require constant and regular feeding throughout the growing season. After all, in order to feed such an abundance of tendrils and rosettes, plants require increased nutrition.
If, when growing ampelous strawberries, the main thing for you is the harvest of berries, and not the decorativeness of the plants, then the main care procedure should be to remove excess tendrils and rosettes. The plant can feed no more than two rosettes on the mustache; it is advisable to remove all the others as they appear. The total number of mustaches should also not be too large.Usually no more than the first five tendrils are left, but you can experiment with feeding and watch the development of your bushes. Ultimately, much depends on the characteristics of a particular variety.
Gardeners are often interested in how to properly preserve ampelous strawberries in the winter.
- The most reliable way is to move the bushes in the fall from containers to beds, burying them in the ground and mulching with fallen leaves or straw. You can bury the bushes in the ground along with containers, if they allow this.
- In the southern regions, it is possible to simply insulate vertical structures with straw mats or dense white non-woven material to avoid sunburn.
- And in those regions where there is a lot of snow, it is enough to dismantle the vertical structures and place them on the ground. They usually overwinter well under snow cover.
- It is also possible to move pots with hanging varieties to the cellar for the winter; you just need to take into account that strawberries are ideally stored in winter at temperatures from -5°C to +3°C. At higher temperatures, fungal diseases may spread.
In spring, strawberry bushes can again be planted in flowerpots and containers, removing faded and dry leaves and caring for them in the same way as ordinary garden strawberries.
Conclusion
The harvest of ampelous strawberries depends on the variety, but in any case, having planted this miracle on your plot, you will admire the cascade of flowers and fruits all summer and enjoy the aroma and taste of juicy berries.
