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All gardeners are divided into those who are able to grow garden strawberries, and those who have not yet been very successful in this difficult task. This often depends on experience, but not always. Even beginners can, if they wish, get a good harvest of sweet and large strawberries if they follow all the tips and recommendations that experienced gardeners can provide them with. Of course, choosing the right variety is often of paramount importance, especially for our difficult climatic conditions, but caring for strawberries is also very important. It’s not for nothing that this berry is called the queen, because only if you satisfy all its whims and demands, you can fully enjoy the delicious taste and aroma of its berries. This article will help you decide on all the answers to the question: “How to properly care for strawberries?”
Planting strawberries
It’s good if you already have an inherited strawberry plantation, but if not, you’ll have to start from the very beginning, that is, by planting strawberry bushes.
The place for future beds is chosen to be sunny, on level ground, preferably protected from strong winds and with groundwater not higher than 70 cm.
The most optimal times for planting strawberries or garden strawberries are July-August (for the middle zone) and September (for the south of Russia). You can plant strawberries in the spring (in April), but then in the first year the fruiting will be weak. Moreover, if you follow the advice of experienced gardeners, then when planting in spring it is better to generally not allow strawberry bushes to bloom in the first season and cut off all their flower stalks and tendrils.
When developing a new plantation for planting strawberries, perhaps the most important thing is to carefully select all the smallest rhizomes when cultivating the land weed. This way, you will make it much easier for you to further care for your strawberry bushes in the country in the next 4-5 years.
In addition, it is very important to add a sufficient amount of organic matter when starting a strawberry plantation. It is best to apply rotted manure in an amount of 6-7 kg per square meter. The effect of manure lasts about 3-4 years, just as long as it makes sense to grow strawberries in one place. In the future, it is advisable to change the location due to the accumulation of diseases and a decrease in the size of the berries.
When choosing high-quality seedlings for your future strawberry plant, you should focus on the following plant characteristics:
- The root system of the bushes should be voluminous and fibrous;
- The diameter of a suitable root collar starts from 0.6 cm;
- The strawberry bush must have at least 3-5 leaves;
- The roots must be elastic, strong, white, and at least 7 cm long.
The day before planting the seedlings, the soil must be thoroughly watered, but so that it is moist and not wet.
Immediately after planting the strawberry bushes, it is advisable to sprinkle the holes with humus and mulch with any organic material: sawdust, straw, mown grass. This will help prevent the formation of soil crust and conserve moisture in the strawberry bushes.
In the future, caring for strawberries in the first year comes down to regular watering in hot weather and removing flower stalks and tendrils when planting in the spring.
Spring period
Spring is a very important time for gardeners, and if you don’t know how to care for strawberries, then it’s best to start by inspecting your beds immediately after the snow melts from them. Most likely, you will find some dry and brown leaves, and maybe even a few bushes could not survive the winter and disappeared without a trace. You will need to wait for sunny and dry weather so that the ground around the bushes dries out a little. And the first care procedure will be pruning, collecting and burning all non-living plant debris. If you covered your strawberry bushes from frost for the winter, then it would be better to remove the shelters, including organic ones, so that the earth warms up well.
The root system of garden strawberries develops intensively at low but positive temperatures. During this period, it significantly advances the development of the upper vegetative part. Therefore, at this time it is favorable to transplant some bushes to replace the dead ones, or plant new ones.This should be done only as soon as possible, choosing cloudy weather in any case. Soon, with the onset of warmer weather, intensive development of the above-ground part of the strawberries will begin, and replanting will need to be stopped.
During the same period, mandatory loosening of the soil around the strawberry bushes and row spacing is carried out. This procedure can improve oxygen access to the roots and help conserve soil moisture. At the same time, perennial weeds are removed. If loosening row spacing can be carried out to a depth of 10 cm, then around the bushes themselves you need to act carefully. It is advisable to add soil to the bare roots of older strawberry bushes. Young rosettes, on the contrary, are often drawn into the soil after winter. They need to be raked a little and the heart, which is the growth point, is freed.
First treatments and fertilizing
After destroying plant debris from the beds and loosening them, one of the mandatory procedures for caring for strawberries in the open ground is the preventive treatment of strawberry bushes against diseases and pests. Traditionally, copper-containing preparations were used to prevent fungal diseases, such as: Bordeaux mixture, Chorus, Khom. If you do not want to use chemicals, then you can use a biofungicide solution - Fitosporin.
Experienced gardeners recommend watering strawberry bushes with hot water and potassium permanganate in early spring. The water temperature should be about +50°+60°C, and add potassium permanganate until a light pink color is obtained. Such a hot shower is very helpful in neutralizing many pests that overwinter in the soil, in particular the strawberry mite.
First feeding strawberries in early spring after loosening the soil, it is usually carried out using nitrogen fertilizers. You can use ammonium nitrate (application rate 35-45 grams per 1 square meter) or mullein solution. It needs to be soaked in a small amount of water, and then diluted in a ratio of 1:10 and watered the strawberry bushes, spending 4-6 liters per 1 square meter. meter. For beginners, special liquid or granular complex fertilizers for strawberries with microelements are very easy to use.
Before the strawberries bloom Potassium and phosphorus fertilizers are more needed. The following fertilizing composition will be effective: dilute 2 tablespoons of nitroammophoska and 1 teaspoon of potassium sulfate in 10 liters of water. You will need to pour half a liter of solution onto each strawberry bush.
And during flowering, it is good to spray the strawberries with a solution of boric acid. It is prepared simply: 1 gram of boric acid is diluted in one liter of hot water, cooled and all bushes with flower stalks are carefully sprayed with the resulting solution. This procedure can increase yield by 20%.
Mulching beds with strawberries
Of course, mulching is not at all a mandatory procedure, but caring for strawberries will not seem so difficult to you if you carefully mulch the beds in early spring after loosening and carrying out all the fertilizing and treatments. A layer of mulch can protect the berries from direct contact with the soil, prevent the growth of weeds and reduce the amount of watering, as it retains moisture in the ground. When watering, mulch prevents water from splashing soil particles onto flowers and berries.In addition, mulch gives strawberry plantings an aesthetic appearance.
Various materials are used for mulching: sawdust, straw, dry grass, compost, leaf humus, pine needles, tree bark. Inorganic materials are often used: lutrasil and even black film, but only in annual crops, since it provokes outbreaks of fungal diseases.
It is best if the mulch layer is about 4-7 cm: a smaller layer of mulch will allow weeds to grow through it, and a thicker layer will delay the heating of the soil by the sun. It is advisable to have time to mulch the ridges before flowering begins.
Summer period
To understand how to care for strawberries in the summer to get a full harvest, follow these recommendations:
- Water the bushes at least once a week. If the weather is dry and hot, more frequent watering may be required. Remember that only before flowering strawberry bushes can be watered from above using a sprinkler. After setting the berries, watering should be carried out strictly at the root.
- During the ripening period, watering should be reduced to a minimum, and resumed only after the strawberries have fruited.
- Constantly remove weeds, as well as damaged leaves, flowers and berries from strawberry bushes.
- Regularly collect ripening berries along with the stalks.
- Apply mulch to bare areas of soil near the bushes so that the berries do not come into contact with the soil.
- If there is heavy torrential rain, it is advisable to cover the strawberry bed with film to avoid the development of diseases due to waterlogging.
What needs to be done to ensure that the harvest grows every year
Caring for strawberries involves more than just watering and fertilizing.It is equally important during the fruiting period to select the most prolific bushes. The best bushes are not those on which the largest strawberries ripen, and the rest are pea-shaped small things, but those that produce a lot of berries of more or less equal size. They need to be specially marked somehow, and it is from them that, after the formation of whiskers, the planting material for propagation is selected. Moreover, you should select only the first few rosettes from the first, or at most the second, runner of the selected bushes.
All other tendrils, starting from the third and the rosettes that form on them, should be mercilessly removed - they only take away the strength of the mother bush and do not allow the planting of flower buds for the next year after fruiting.
In addition, there are so-called varieties of weedy strawberries. The bushes of these varieties either do not bloom at all or produce small, ugly berries even with the best care.
They only take nutrients from good bushes. This is also important because such bushes usually form a large number of tendrils that act like weeds.
Post-fruiting period
Garden strawberries are one of the first to bloom and bear fruit in garden plots. But after the snow melts, very little time passes until the first berries ripen - where do strawberries get the strength to form tasty and sweet berries? And next year’s harvest begins to emerge from mid-summer to autumn of the current year. That is why caring for strawberries after fruiting is almost the most important throughout the season.
Trimming strawberry leaves
After the end of fruiting, many gardeners cut off all the leaves on the strawberry bushes along with the mustache. Others believe that this procedure weakens the plants. It seems that here you need to stick to the golden mean - if among the leaves there are many affected by various spots, then it would be better to cut them all off. If the leaves are healthy and strong, then they can be left for this season. In any case, be sure to cut out all the whiskers except the first two if you are interested in propagating this variety. If the decision was made to mow everything, then the foliage is cut at a height of about 6-8 cm above the ground, so as not to damage the heart of the rosettes, from which new leaves will later develop.
Immediately after pruning the planting strawberries need feeding. For this purpose, complex mineral fertilizer with microelements is used. You can use 20-30 grams per square meter.
During the same period, it is necessary to carry out another loosening of the rows with a small hilling of the bushes.
Much the same thing is done in the fall, when strawberries are preparing for winter dormancy.
This video shows in detail and clearly strawberry pruning:
Differences in caring for regular and remontant varieties
There are some differences in how to care for remontant strawberries throughout the season and after fruiting. After all, as you know, bushes remontant strawberries capable of forming two or even three crops per season.
- Therefore, watering and fertilizing should be more regular. Watering is best done by drip irrigation - this will greatly save time and effort.
- Pruning of dry and diseased leaves on bushes must also be carried out regularly throughout the season.
- Mulching should be a necessary procedure as it helps retain heat during cooler seasons.
- Plantings need to be updated more often, either every year, or every two to three years.
- Planting remontant strawberries usually requires shelter for the winter, since due to fruiting, the bushes do not have time to prepare for the cold until frost.
Let's sum it up
By following all the above tips throughout the year, even a novice amateur gardener will be able to get a good harvest of tasty and sweet strawberries.
