Content
Growing strawberries in garden plots is becoming increasingly popular. If experienced gardeners have already decided on varieties, then beginners face a difficult task when choosing seeds or seedlings of garden strawberries. After all, today breeders all over the world present new varieties of sweet, aromatic berries every year for public viewing.
We want to talk about garden strawberries, created during the Soviet Union. Despite the fact that the variety is already many years old, Strawberry Festival Chamomile is not going to leave summer cottages and farm plots. On the contrary, it continues to win the hearts of gardeners. We will talk about the characteristics of the garden strawberry variety and cultivation.
Characteristic features of the variety
Strawberry Festival Chamomile of medium ripening, according to the description of the variety, numerous photos and reviews from gardeners today remains popular among many gardeners in Russia. Although the variety was bred in the last century. The author of garden strawberries with an interesting name is breeder Yu. K. Katinskaya. She crossed two varieties of garden strawberries - Obilnaya and Premier. At the same time, she retained the best qualities of each of the “parents”.
What attracts gardeners to the Festival Chamomile strawberry:
- Garden strawberries have a compact, semi-spreading, fairly tall bush. The leaves are medium-sized, dull green, slightly wrinkled.
- There is an important difference between Festival Chamomile and other varieties of strawberries, which cannot be kept silent when describing. The massive formation of bright green mustaches with a reddish tint makes caring for the plantings a little more difficult.
- The plant produces a large number of peduncles with bisexual flowers. They differ in strength and density. With a pencil thickness, the peduncles practically do not bend under the weight of numerous fruits. Successful arrangement of peduncles at the level of the leaves or slightly below. Ripening fruits are well ventilated and evenly warmed by the sun's rays.
- In the southern regions and central Russia, the first festivals can be tried in the second half of June. Gardeners living in harsher climates - two weeks later. Fruiting lasts until frost.
- The berries are quite large, especially during the first harvest. Their weight reaches 35-45 grams. The last fruits will be twice as small.
- According to the description of the variety, photos and reviews from gardeners, the Festival Chamomile strawberry has irregularly shaped berries, slightly flattened on the sides. Deep grooves can often be observed on the fruits. Look at the photo, this is what the berries of a popular variety look like.
- The fruits are bright red, with a well-defined shine. Moreover, the pulp is exactly the same color. The berries are juicy, sweet and sour, dense, which is very important for large strawberry producers. The berries have high shelf life and transportability. They do not wrinkle during transportation and do not flow.
- A variety for universal use. The berries are good both for fresh consumption and for canning and freezing, since they do not lose their shape.
- Strawberries of this variety are characterized by abundant fruiting and stable yield. From one bush you can collect up to 500 grams of fruit.
- Festival Chamomile is a drought- and frost-resistant variety, so even gardeners in the northern regions of Russia are engaged in its cultivation. Can be grown in open ground, under film or in a greenhouse.
- Plants are resistant to many strawberry diseases due to their high immunity.
If we talk about the disadvantages of the Festival Chamomile strawberry variety, then, according to reviews from gardeners:
- plants cannot resist powdery mildew and verticillium wilt. In the photo you can see what strawberry leaves look like affected by this disease.
- Often you have to “repair” strawberry beds, as the plants begin to lose their properties.
Reproduction methods
Since strawberry plantings need to be rejuvenated frequently, novice gardeners are often interested in how they can provide themselves with high-quality and healthy planting material. As a rule, seeds and seedlings sold in stores are not cheap; restoring beds with purchased material will cost a pretty penny.
Strawberries of the Festival Chamomile variety reproduce, like most of their relatives, in different ways:
- growing seedlings from seeds;
- rooting mustache rosettes:
- dividing the mother bush.
Seed propagation
It should be immediately noted that seed propagation of garden strawberries, regardless of the variety, is possible only with store-bought seeds. In this case, 90% of the varietal qualities corresponding to the description are preserved.Plants obtained from independently collected seeds do not have this feature. The fact is that different varieties of garden strawberries grow in the beds, and the flowers are cross-pollinated. Strawberry seeds should be sown in early February.
Rooting rosettes from mustaches
Festival Chamomile produces an abundance of strong green tendrils with a reddish tint. When strawberries bloom and bear fruit, the tendrils must be plucked off, otherwise they will deplete the bush. This will negatively affect not only the quantity of the harvest, but also the size and quality of the fruit.
To obtain a harvest and planting material for strawberries of this variety, some of the plants are allowed to grow in queen cells. Their flower stalks are removed and their mustache is given free rein. No more than five mustaches are left on a healthy bush. As a rule, the first rosette is rooted. This can be done both in the garden bed itself and in cups, as in the photo below.
You can root your mustache at any time. If you need planting material for next year, then it is better to start rooting the rosettes at the end of August. Planting material grown in pots is simply removed to a cool place.
In other regions, seedlings are transplanted to a permanent place and covered for the winter as usual.
Dividing the bush
The easiest way is to plant cuttings, since parts from a disassembled bush are immediately planted in the garden bed. They take root quickly. But the most important thing is that the harvest can be obtained in the year of planting if this work is carried out early in the spring.
Features of care
Based on the description of the variety and its characteristics, growing Festival Chamomile strawberries is not difficult.
Main:
- Choose a sunny place, fertile, breathable soil. It is better to plant seedlings in beds where carrots, garlic, onions, zucchini and pumpkin previously grew. Planting in the shade and after potatoes and tomatoes is not recommended due to poor lighting and the possibility of fungal diseases.
- When planting, take into account the distance between the bushes of at least 25 cm. When planting in two rows, the row spacing should be about 60 cm. First-year strawberries do not bear fruit, but throw out tendrils, which must be directed into the row spacing. The planting diagram is in the photo below.
All other agrotechnical methods for caring for Festival Chamomile strawberries are no different: watering, loosening, weeding, timely fertilizing, pest and disease control.
A gardener's opinion about the Festival Chamomile and the secrets of growing it:
