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The greatest reward for a gardener for all his work is a large harvest of strawberries. Experienced gardeners know that abundant fruiting occurs in the second and third years after it was transplanted, and a good harvest is a sure sign for replanting strawberries. If this is not done, the berries will become smaller, and then there will be fewer of them. As a matter of fact, this is how culture will degenerate in a few years.
To maintain the productivity of strawberries, they need to be rejuvenated once every 3-4 years. This article will talk about how How to properly replant strawberries in the fall. You will also learn when you can replant berries and when it is better not to do this. The article will discuss the benefits of autumn transplantation, and will select a video that will further expand on the topic of transplanting strawberries to a new location.
Advantages of autumn transplantation
Many gardeners claim that autumn is the best time to replant plants from the Rosaceae family. Why? Thanks to frequent autumn rains, crop care during this period can be kept to a minimum. In addition, rains will help young seedlings take root better, since there is a high level of humidity in the soil at this time. But the question arises: when to replant strawberries in the fall, in what month?
In September you can already replant strawberries.In warm regions, these manipulations can be performed in October. In this case, the young seedlings will have time to grow sufficient leaf mass for safe wintering. Everything, as they say, must be done in a timely manner, then you can expect a worthy reward - a bountiful harvest.
Thanks to autumn replanting of berries, in spring the bushes will already bloom, and you will be able to indulge in a small harvest. When transplanting in spring, you can’t expect fruiting in principle.
How to choose strawberry seedlings
After harvesting in August, if we are talking about remontant varieties, strawberries begin to throw out tendrils with young rosettes. This period is considered the most suitable for selecting seedlings. You can also propagate the plant by dividing the bush. But this option can only be used if you choose young bushes that grew in the beds in the summer.
The tendrils can be left to root directly on the beds, however, some gardeners root them in separate, pre-prepared containers. Thus, transplanting strawberries in the fall will be done more efficiently, and there will also be an opportunity to grow seedlings in the winter.
If 4–5 leaves appear on the new rosette, then it can already be considered a full-fledged bush, which should already be transplanted from the mother bush. Before replanting a young bush, you need to remove all the leaves from it, leaving only 3-4 young leaves. Thanks to this, the root system will spend less energy feeding the green mass, and as a result, the strawberry bush will develop more harmoniously.
It is important that only the first 2 tendrils take root from each bush. All others must be deleted. Otherwise, all seedlings will be small and weak.If, before transplanting strawberries to a new place in the fall, you water them abundantly, then the young seedlings will have time to develop a good root system and quickly take root in the planted area.
Choosing a place to plant seedlings
Before planting seedlings, you need to select a plot of land. The soil should be well fertilized, the soil should be loose and light, preferably clay or sandy-loamy.
Before transplanting strawberries in spring or autumn, you should feed land. This can be done with mineral fertilizers, making, for example, a mixture of peat and wood ash or peat and mullein. In this case, the harvest of strawberries, as well as wild strawberries (since the crops need the same care), will be stable and abundant.
Strawberries grow well after onions, lettuce, parsley, legumes, beets, garlic, radishes and carrots. Transplanted bushes need to continue to be looked after. First, they need to be watered daily if the fall is dry. In addition, you need to delete everything weeds, so that they do not weaken the soil, and the strawberries can take root faster and more painlessly. Plants from the Rosaceae family, which includes strawberries, should not be planted after cabbage and plants from the nightshade family.
Formation of a strawberry plantation
If you have already grown seedlings and prepared the necessary plot of land, and the time for transplanting has already approached, then it’s time to start forming new strawberry beds. There are several ways to plant bushes:
- carpet;
- beds;
- in a checkerboard pattern.
It is better to choose a cloudy day for replanting, so that you do not have to shade the beds later.After digging the holes, they should be thoroughly filled with water, and then the seedlings with a lump of earth should be placed in them. Then the young bushes are covered with earth and watered abundantly again. With good follow-up care, all seedlings will take root and will produce their first harvest in the next season.
It is best to select bushes to be transplanted from glasses or dig them out of the bed immediately before planting. If you do this, the transplanted bush will quickly adapt to the new location, without even stopping the development process.
A few hours after transplanting, the soil will settle. Then the bushes can be sprinkled with dry peat or fertile soil. Roots develop better under a layer of mulch made from pine needles, straw or sawdust.
Basic rules for transplantation
Now, to summarize, it’s up to you to replant strawberries in spring or autumn. However, it is important to adhere to some general rules:
- Strawberries should be replanted by dividing a young bush that is no more than six months old or from young shoots of a mother bush that is no more than 3 years old.
- When is the best time to replant strawberries? In order for it to produce its first harvest in the spring, it needs to be replanted in early autumn, although this can be done in the spring before flowering begins.
- Young rosettes of tendrils can be detached from the mother bush after they have taken root and formed 3-4 adult leaves.
- Strawberries love moderately lit areas of land with slightly acidic, loamy soil.A swampy area of land can be drained, and the acidity should be reduced with the help of lime.
- The culture will take root well in the place where legumes were previously planted. But it grows poorly after tomatoes, potatoes and cucumbers.
- Preparing the bed for planting strawberries should begin 8 weeks in advance. To do this, the area is dug up and weeds are removed from it. The soil is fertilized and moistened on the eve of transplantation.
- A young plant will take root better in a new place if, before planting, the roots are dipped in a solution of water, clay and manure.
- There should be a distance of at least 25 cm between the bushes, and 55–70 cm between the beds.
Before the onset of cold weather, the soil around the bushes needs to be mulched. If you live in a harsh climate, then the strawberry bushes should be covered, or better yet, an arched frame should be built over each bed, which can be lined with oilcloth or polycarbonate.
So, from this article you learned how to transplant strawberries in the fall, why this time is considered the best for carrying out these manipulations, and how to select and prepare soil and seedlings for transplanting strawberries.
We also invite you to watch a video from which you will learn about several secrets of growing strawberries from one of the experienced gardeners:
