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After a long winter, strawberries, like all other plants, need feeding. After all, if the soil it is meager and there is no good harvest to be expected. When the gardener removes the winter shelter, clears the bushes of last year's leaves, and removes diseased plants, it is time to feed the strawberries. To choose the right fertilizer for strawberries, you need to assess the condition of the plants, know the age of the bushes, and conduct a soil analysis.
How to feed strawberries, what fertilizers to prefer for strawberries, how to determine the right time for feeding - there will be an article about this.
How to fertilize strawberries
Fertilizing strawberries, like other garden crops, can be done with both mineral and organic fertilizers. There is no clear answer to the question of what is the best way to fertilize bushes: both store-bought complexes and home remedies have their advantages.
So, mineral supplements can be purchased at a pharmacy or a specialized agricultural store. These compositions require precise dosage, and sometimes compliance with the preparation technology (dissolution in water, combination with other chemicals).
In order to accurately calculate the dosage of mineral fertilizer for strawberries, you must carefully read the instructions for the preparation, and also know the approximate composition of the soil. Excess chemicals will quickly lead to burns of leaves or roots; strawberries can drop ovaries and flowers.
Fertilizing strawberries with organic compounds is safer: the soil will take as much fertilizer as it needs. The only exception is fresh manure or bird droppings - such fertilizers are not used for strawberry bushes; the manure must be fermented.
It is very convenient and profitable to mulch strawberry bushes with organic compounds such as compost or humus. The best time to apply mulch is spring, while there are no flowers or ovaries on the bushes. Once you have laid a layer of humus or compost, you don’t have to worry about feeding strawberries until the end of the current season - the bushes will have enough nutrients for good flowering and a bountiful harvest.
Plants are not used to processing complex fertilizers, because they received the necessary substances in ready-made form.
The best option is considered to be a combined feeding of strawberries using both organic and mineral substances. Such balanced nutrition will allow you to get a decent harvest, and not have to worry about an excess of toxins and the effect of berries on human health.
Fertilizing strawberries in the first year after planting
The feeding schedule and amount of fertilizer for bushes directly depends on their age. It is recommended to feed very young plants planted last year only with mineral fertilizers.
The young strawberries had not yet borne fruit, the plants were only growing their root system and green mass, so the soil had not yet been depleted - all the substances necessary for the development and ripening of the fruit remained in the soil.
Mineral fertilizing is needed only to strengthen the immunity of strawberry bushes, to make them stronger in the fight against diseases and pests. An excellent fertilizer option for strawberries in the first year of their life would be complex feeding:
- Potassium, phosphorus and nitrogen must be mixed in equal proportions.
- Calculate the amount of fertilizer so that there are about 100 grams of complex additive per square meter.
- Scatter the mixed granules between the strawberry bushes and loosen the soil a little to incorporate the fertilizer into the soil.
This method will allow fertilizers to gradually flow to the roots, being absorbed by the strawberries from the soil along with water. The gardener is guaranteed a good harvest of large berries!
The optimal time for the first feeding of strawberries is April, when flower stalks are just beginning to form on the bushes.
Spring feeding of adult bushes
Over the course of several seasons, strawberries absorb all the necessary microelements and chemical compounds from the soil - the soil is depleted, so the berries become smaller and the harvest becomes meager.
You can make up for the lack of nutrients in the spring, when the earth has already warmed up a little and dried out, and the strawberries have awakened and put out young shoots.
Old strawberries are usually fed three times:
- as soon as young leaves appear;
- before flowering;
- at the stage of fruit formation.
First feeding of strawberries
The best fertilizer for strawberries in the spring is organic. As soon as the bushes begin to grow, young leaves begin to appear on them, you need to remove last year's foliage, clean the beds and apply fertilizer.
The soil around the bushes must be loosened, being careful not to damage the roots. Then you can spread chicken manure, cow manure or humus between the rows. It is advisable to cover the fertilizer with a layer of soil. This feeding will additionally act as mulch, and the organic components will be absorbed by the strawberry roots gradually, in the required quantity.
If the land on the plot with strawberries is severely depleted, or perennial plants grow there that have already produced more than one harvest, a more thorough approach will be required: a balanced complex of organic and mineral fertilizers is needed.
The fertilizer is prepared as follows: 0.5 kg of cow manure is diluted in a bucket of water, mixed and a tablespoon of ammonium sulfate is added there. Each strawberry bush should be watered with about a liter of this fertilizer.
Second feeding
The time for the second feeding comes when inflorescences form on the strawberry bushes. In order for the flowering to be abundant and each peduncle to turn into an ovary, the plants need to be additionally fertilized.
At this stage it is advisable to use mineral supplements. The following composition works well:
- a tablespoon of potassium;
- two tablespoons of nitrophoska (or nitroammophoska);
- 10 liters of water.
Each bush needs about 500 grams of this fertilizer.
The third stage of feeding
This stage of fertilizing should coincide with the period of berry formation. To make the fruits large and tasty, it is better to use organic fertilizers, because minerals can leave not very useful chemical compounds in the berries.
Infusion is considered a very effective and affordable fertilizer. weedy herbs Absolutely any weeds that can be collected specifically or used those that were weeded from garden beds are suitable for its preparation.
Weeds need to be crushed by chopping them with a knife and poured into a container. It is better to use plastic containers for these purposes, since metal buckets can oxidize and react, ruining the composition of the fertilizer.
The grass is poured with water until it is covered. Cover the container and place it in a warm place for a week. During this time, fermentation will occur when the process is completed, the solution is diluted with water in a ratio of 1:10 and the strawberry bushes are watered at the root.
Foliar feeding of strawberry bushes
Many gardeners are concerned about the question: “Is it possible to feed strawberries using the foliar method?” Really, Fertilizing strawberries by irrigating their leaves with a special nutrient mixture is considered quite effective.
Bushes can be treated with nitrogen-containing preparations. This fertilizer stimulates the growth and development of bushes, and also has a positive effect on the formation of ovaries and their number.
Spraying strawberry bushes is even more effective than root feeding.The fact is that leaves absorb nutrients much better and deliver them to all plant tissues faster.
It is best to do this in the early morning or evening, after the sun has set. Cloudy weather is also suitable for foliar feeding, but if it rains, the treatment will have to be repeated.
Strawberry leaves will gradually absorb minerals, so re-treatment will only be necessary in case of rain.
Recipes for folk fertilizers for strawberries
As practice shows, folk remedies are sometimes no less effective than specially selected mineral complexes or expensive organics.
There are several particularly successful recipes:
- Bakery yeast. The essence of fertilizing using conventional baker's yeast is that it creates an ideal environment for the proliferation of microorganisms. These microbes process the soil, releasing nitrogen that is beneficial for plants. Thus, the soil is populated with the necessary organisms, becomes nutritious and loose. The most common, but effective, recipe using baker's yeast: dissolve a kilogram of fresh yeast in five liters of warm water and add a glass of sugar. The composition will be ready when the fermentation process is completed. Then 0.5 liters of fertilizer are diluted in a bucket of water and the mixture is used to water the strawberries.
- A mixture of yeast and black bread. The crusts of any rye bread are added to the usual yeast composition, the mixture is infused for several days and is also used to water strawberries.
- Spoiled milk. Strawberries bear fruit well in slightly acidic soils, so the main task of the gardener is to reduce the acidity level of the soil.In this case, fermented milk products such as yogurt, kefir, and whey help well. Additionally, the earth is saturated with microelements such as phosphorus, potassium, and sulfur. In addition, sour milk can be applied not only at the root, but also used to irrigate the bushes: this will protect the strawberries from aphids and spider mites.
The choice of fertilizer and adherence to the feeding schedule is the key to a good harvest of tasty and large strawberries. To maintain the bushes, it is not at all necessary to spend money; strawberries can be fed with organic fertilizers or folk remedies can be used to feed them. You can learn more about such budget fertilizers from the video:
Thank you very much for your article. I received a lot of important information for myself. I’ve been working on strawberries recently and I want to do everything correctly and in the right time.
Thanks for the interesting and informative article. I've been growing strawberries recently. Very interesting tips about feeding with yeast, black bread and sour milk. I’ll definitely try it, otherwise I don’t really want to treat it with chemicals, but then I’ll have to eat it all.