Content
Garden strawberries, more often called strawberries, are a wonderful, tasty and healthy berry. It can be found in almost every garden. There are various ways growing strawberries. The traditional method, which involves planting plants in open ground, is familiar to many gardeners and is most often used in everyday life. However, it has not only advantages, but also some disadvantages, so before you start planting strawberry seedlings, it would be useful to familiarize yourself with the features of all existing technologies for growing this berry.
Strawberries in open ground
Strawberries are distinguished by their unpretentiousness and resistance to adverse weather conditions. Frost-resistant varieties in the open ground can be cultivated even in northern regions. In this way, berries are grown in private farmsteads and on an industrial scale. The prevalence of the method is explained by a number of advantages. However, having decided to implement the technology on your plot of land, you need to know the disadvantages that you will have to face.
Advantages and disadvantages
Growing strawberries in open ground does not require financial costs for purchasing material or hiring workers. A real strawberry plantation can be created by one person with his own hands. This is perhaps one of the most significant advantages of technology, however, it cannot be called the only one. Other advantages include:
- easier care of strawberries;
- good air circulation between plants;
- the ability to create large area plantings;
- ease of picking berries;
- openness of the root system, which allows it to fully “breathe”.
The method of growing strawberries in open ground also has a number of significant disadvantages:
- the presence of weeds that need to be weeded out;
- contact of ripe berries with damp soil, as a result of which gray rot may develop;
- high water consumption for irrigation, since moisture quickly evaporates from the open surface of the earth.
Despite the significant disadvantages of this method, this is what most gardeners use. At the same time, having decided grow strawberries on open areas of land, you need to know some features of the technology.
Features of the technology
Strawberries prefer to grow in sunny areas of the earth. The soil must be fertile and well drained. You can plant strawberry bushes like a plantation, without creating beds. However, in this case, it becomes more difficult to care for plants, the bushes receive less light, and ripe berries are more often exposed to pathogenic fungi. That is why it is recommended to plant seedlings on trapezoidal ridges in two rows.
Growing strawberries in trapezoidal beds makes it easier to care for plants and allows each bush to receive enough light. Harvesting in such beds is a pleasure, since the strawberries hang over the edges of the bed. At the same time, air ventilation near the surface of the berries improves, which prevents them from rotting.
It is worth noting that some gardeners use the so-called carpet method of growing berries. To do this, you need to build a box bed measuring 2x3 m and fill it with nutritious soil. Plants need to be planted in several rows. There is no need to remove the resulting whiskers from the ridge. Over time, such a bed will turn into a solid green carpet with a lot of berries.
Growing strawberries in a greenhouse or film tunnel
This method is great for growing remontant varieties of strawberries continuous fruiting. Artificially created conditions make it possible to prolong growing season plants, protecting them from the arrival of early autumn frosts. Features of remontant strawberries continuous fruiting is also due to the fact that its life cycle is only 1 season, which means that at the end of fruiting the greenhouse can be cleaned, treated from pests and the soil fertilized for the new season.
Advantages and disadvantages of the method
It is worth noting that growing berries in a greenhouse does not have many advantages, but the most significant of them is high yield.In protected conditions, the process of development and fruiting is not affected by external factors, which means that even in the rainiest and coldest summer you can count on a large number of berries.
In addition to high yield, the method has some other significant advantages:
- high air humidity, which is a favorable environment for growing strawberries;
- the ability to grow berries in regions with an unfavorable climate;
- If there are heating installations in the greenhouse, it is possible to grow remontant varieties of continuous fruiting all year round, until the end of the plant life cycle.
Growing strawberries in a greenhouse has a number of disadvantages:
- financial costs for the purchase and installation of a greenhouse;
- the need for regular ventilation, since in conditions without proper air circulation the berries rot;
- the need to organize drip irrigation to prevent rotting of the berries;
- the development of harmful microflora in the greenhouse environment and the mandatory adoption of measures to protect plants from viruses and fungi;
Thus, we can conclude that growing berries in a greenhouse is more suitable for passionate people who are willing to devote a lot of time, effort and money to obtain a good harvest of delicious strawberries throughout the season.
Features of the method
In a greenhouse, only drip watering of plants should be used. Taking this feature into account, it is recommended to create M-shaped beds under cover:
- height not less than 40 cm;
- the edges are sloping like a trapezoid;
- 2 rows of strawberries are planted along the ridge closer to the edges, and a small ditch is made between them for a hose with drip irrigation.
Strawberry seedlings are planted on the heights of an M-shaped bed at a distance of at least 20 cm from each other. It is important that soil from such elevations does not fall into the irrigation ditch or passages, as this can expose plant roots. To protect the roots, you can also use a covering material.
Before disembarking strawberries in the greenhouse care must be taken to apply fertilizers. You can create nutritious soil using organic matter or mineral fertilizers. As strawberries grow, they will deplete soil resources, which means that the plants need to be fertilized additionally. In this case, you can feed the plants by adding fertilizers to the water for drip irrigation.
Strawberries on a covered bed
This technology for growing berries is quite progressive. It can be called the best way to grow strawberries in private backyards. The method eliminates some of the disadvantages of other cultivation methods. Using it you can grow a good harvest of berries without much effort.
Advantages and disadvantages
This relatively new method of growing strawberries is increasingly being used by ordinary gardeners in their garden plots. The popularity of the method is explained by a number of significant advantages:
- the material warms the roots of plants and prevents them from freezing in winter;
- the black coating heats up quickly and retains heat in the soil, due to which strawberries awaken earlier than usual in the spring;
- weeds do not grow through the material, which means there is no need to weed the ridges;
- When watering, water and fertilizers fall directly under the strawberry root;
- the material prevents the evaporation of moisture from the surface of the ridge;
- the resulting berries are on the surface of the film and do not come into contact with damp soil, which means that the likelihood of them rotting is reduced.
Thus, growing strawberries in a covered bed practically eliminates all the disadvantages of the above cultivation methods. Among the disadvantages of the technology, one can name only the financial costs of purchasing the material.
Growing technique
The newest method of strawberry cultivation is based on the use of agricultural material (geotextile) or polyethylene. The artificial cover of the bed acts as mulch. When choosing a material, you need to pay attention to its color; it should be as dark as possible in order to better absorb thermal and solar energy.
To grow strawberries using this technology, it is necessary to prepare nutritious soil by adding mineral and organic fertilizers. It is necessary to form ridges according to the trapezoid principle, so that the edges are gentle. You need to lay covering material on the formed and slightly compacted bed and secure its edges. On the outside of the shelter you need to mark the points where the strawberry bushes will be planted. In this case, it is important to follow a certain planting scheme, in which the plants will be well ventilated with air and not shade each other.
In accordance with the intended markings, holes with a diameter of 5-8 cm must be made on the covering material. Young strawberry bushes are planted in them. Subsequent care of the crop includes watering and fertilizing. The absence of weeds allows the owner not to worry about weeding.
A more detailed description of the technology and a clear example of creating such beds can be seen in the video:
Decorative vertical beds
Some methods of growing strawberries involve not only obtaining a good harvest of berries, but also decorative plantings. So, there are some ways to grow strawberries vertically. All of them are based on the use of artificial structures and devices.
Strawberries in a pipe
This method of growing berries is quite unusual and is highly decorative. It allows you to fit a record number of strawberry bushes on a small plot of land, and, therefore, the crop yield per 1 m2 soil will be large enough. Another advantage of the technology is the mobility of the design and ease of maintenance. It can be easily and simply removed from the garden, for example, into a barn or other shelter for a safe winter. Among the disadvantages of the technology, the complexity of creating the design should be highlighted.
This method of growing strawberries is based on a device made of a pipe and a hose or two pipes of different diameters. The pipe material can be anything, for example, metal or plastic. Its diameter should be more than 15 cm. A piece of a hose or pipe of a smaller diameter used for irrigation should be prepared by making small holes in it along a length equal to the height of the pipe.A 15-20 cm piece of hose at one end must be left intact. After preparation, the hose must be wrapped in geotextile or burlap, which will prevent roots from growing into the holes made.
You need to make holes of 5-10 cm in the main pipe. To do this, you can use a drill with a bit of the required diameter. After drilling, you need to insert the hose into the main pipe so that its entire part rises above the structure. The bottom hole of the hose must be tightly sealed. Gradually fill the main pipe with nutritious soil and plant strawberry bushes in the holes. Subsequently, watering the plants will be done by adding water to the hose through the top hole. For fertilizing strawberries You can use mineral fertilizers dissolved in the same water.
Strawberries on a construction net
There is another technology similar to the above method for growing strawberries. The only difference is that it is based on the use of a construction mesh rather than a pipe. It is rolled up, fixing the edges. Such a “leaky” pipe must be wrapped in polyethylene, and then a watering hose must be inserted vertically into the structure. After this, you need to make holes in the film and plant the strawberries. A special feature of this technology is the ability to create a large-diameter structure.
In addition to the above technologies for constructing vertical ridges, there are other methods that are aimed at creating decorative structures. For example, you can grow strawberries in high, multi-tiered beds. To create them, wooden frames, stone pavements, and tires of different diameters are used.The created structures will decorate the garden and allow you to enjoy the berries. A photo of such a berry flowerbed can be seen below.
Farmers also practice growing berries in hanging and floor-mounted pots, horizontal pipes.
Conclusion
There are various ways to grow strawberries in the country. Each gardener must independently choose for himself the best method that will allow him to achieve his goal, be it obtaining high yields, growing berries at minimal cost, or decorative planting. The article presents the main advantages and disadvantages, as well as cultivation technology and features of the most well-known methods of cultivating strawberries in a garden plot.
