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Plastic bottles have been used for many different purposes lately. Craftsmen use them to make interior decorations, toys, various devices for the home, garden and vegetable garden, and even furniture, and larger structures such as greenhouses and gazebos. It’s good that all these plastic products are in demand and are becoming fashionable, since this allows them to be recycled to a minimum, and, therefore, improves the natural environment. It’s especially nice if the wise use of plastic bottles can be combined with such a pleasant and useful activity as growing strawberries. After all, strawberries are, without exaggeration, a welcome guest in every garden plot. And growing strawberries in plastic bottles can help solve several problems at the same time: increasing the usable planting area, protecting the berries from many diseases and pests, and even decorating the site.
Advantages and disadvantages of this method
Why can growing strawberries in plastic bottles interest gardeners and summer residents? What advantages does such an unusual method have?
- First of all, the use of vertical structures allows you to significantly increase the area for planting strawberries.Even if your plans do not include the construction of capital structures from plastic bottles, then containers with strawberries can simply be placed in any place, including on concrete and rubble-filled areas.
- It allows you to decorate individual elements of the house in an original and original way: a wall or a fence, as well as create a unique atmosphere throughout the entire area.
- Eliminates the need for weeding weed and loosening, therefore it allows you to reduce labor costs for caring for strawberries.
- Reduces the risk of berries being damaged by pests and diseases, and, therefore, allows you to do without additional measures for processing strawberry bushes.
- The berries turn out clean in every sense of the word, and in addition, they are very convenient to pick.
Of course, as with any technique, one cannot help but note the possible difficulties that can await a gardener inspired by this idea.
Since any plastic containers have limitations in size, the soil in them can dry out many times faster than in the ground. In addition, it may overheat excessively when exposed to direct sunlight.
As for soil drying out, there are several solutions to this problem.
Firstly, before planting, you can add a special hydrogel to the soil. While in the ground, it will absorb excess moisture, and then gradually release it to the strawberry bushes.
Secondly, to constantly and regularly moisten the soil in plastic bottles, you can arrange various drip irrigation systems. The simplest such design will be discussed a little later.
Finally, special varieties of strawberries that are particularly drought-resistant can be used for planting in plastic bottles. That is, the yield and taste of berries of these varieties will not depend on the irrigation regime.
Examples of such varieties include:
- Among the early ripening varieties are Alaya, Alisa, Vesnyanka, Zarya, Early dense, Marshall.
- Among the mid-season varieties - Nastenka, Holiday, Evi-2, Yuzhanka.
- Of the later ones - Arnica.
These varieties are considered the most unpretentious, drought-resistant and can withstand some neglect in care. Of course, their berries are smaller than those of ordinary strawberries, but they bear fruit constantly throughout the year and only need watering and fertilizing.
The most famous and widespread varieties of this category are:
- Alexandria;
- Ali Baba;
- Baron Solemacher;
- Snow White.
Also, some problem when growing strawberries in plastic bottles may be the fact that the volume of soil in the bottles is small and the plants will need increased and regular nutrition throughout the growing season. This problem can be overcome if, when preparing a mixture for planting, long-lasting complex fertilizers in granules are added to the soil. They will gradually dissolve as a result of watering and supply the plants with nutrients.
One of the problems that often concerns gardeners considering this unusual way of growing strawberries is the need to protect strawberry bushes from freezing in the winter.There are also several options for solving this issue:
- Firstly, if you plan for a multi-year cycle of growing strawberries in bottles, then the structure of the bottles should be light enough so that it can be moved to a frost-free room for wintering, for example, a basement or cellar.
- In addition, bottles with strawberry bushes can be buried in the ground before winter and covered with spruce branches and straw for insulation.
- Moreover, if there are not very many bottles, then they can be moved to a living room or to the balcony and admire and enjoy delicious berries for a long time.
- Finally, if you use day-neutral varieties for bottle growing, as they are most suitable for such conditions, then it is optimal to grow them as an annual crop. Since the plants receive such a load, bearing fruit for almost 9-10 months, they are unlikely to please you with a good harvest next year. The scheme for growing remontant strawberries in an annual crop will be described in detail below.
- Often, when growing strawberries in plastic bottles, they encounter a problem such as lack of lighting. After all, strawberries in bottles are often grown on balconies or near walls and fences, and not always on the south side.
Despite the general love of light of this plant, with all the variety of varieties, there are also quite shade-tolerant ones. These include, for example: Seasons, Kipcha, Supreme.
Various design options
There are several design options, mostly vertical type for growing strawberries.
1 option
Any plastic bottles from 2 to 5 liters are suitable for this option. In the side wall of the bottle, using a sharp knife, you need to cut a square window with a side equal to 8-10 cm. In the bottom of the bottle, holes are pierced with an awl for water drainage. After all, strawberries really don’t like waterlogged soil, so drainage holes are required. Soil is poured through the window, strawberry seedlings are planted in it and watered well. A bottle with planted strawberries is fixed vertically on a support or simply suspended from horizontal bars, thus creating something like a curtain made of bottles.
If you make a hole longer and place the bottle horizontally, then you can plant two strawberry bushes in it. Just be sure to make drainage holes in the bottom of the bottle.
Option 2
This option involves creating a structure with the simplest irrigation system, in which the soil around the strawberry roots can be kept constantly moist, but without overflowing.
Prepare a 2-3 liter bottle and cut it in half. The lid must be screwed on, but not all the way, so that water can seep through it. Then, in the vicinity of the neck, make several holes with an awl or nail. After turning it over, soil is poured into the top of the bottle.
Then a strawberry bush is planted in the ground, and the entire upper part of the bottle is inserted into its lower part. The result is a fairly stable structure that has a number of advantages:
- Watering is carried out through the bottom of the bottle, from where moisture itself, if necessary, flows to the strawberry roots. Therefore, watering ceases to be a problem - strawberries can be watered much less frequently, simply by pouring water into the tray.
- When watering, water does not spill out, which means the structure can be placed anywhere, including indoors - this way you can avoid excess water and dirt after watering.
This structure can be placed on any surface or suspended, creating vertical beds. As a vertical support, you can use wooden slats, metal mesh, as well as a solid wooden fence or any wall.
Also, in this option, you can plant strawberries in 5-liter bottles - in this case, two or even three strawberry bushes will fit in one bottle.
Option 3
There is another interesting option for creating a vertical structure from plastic bottles for growing strawberries. For it, in addition to bottles, you will definitely need a support, the role of which can be played by a wooden shield or a metal fence.
First, take a plastic bottle and cut off the bottom. The plug is not screwed on all the way so that water can easily seep through it. The bottle is turned upside down and a window cutout is made in the upper part, about 5-7 cm deep. The neck of the bottle is filled with earth a centimeter below the cutout. A strawberry bush is planted in it.
The next bottle is taken, all the above operations are performed, and it is lowered with the cork down into the previous bottle. So, you can repeat several times depending on the height of the support. Each bottle is secured to a support so that its cork does not touch the ground surface of the bottle below.In this design, when watering from above, water gradually seeps through all containers without stagnating. You can make a tray below where it will accumulate.
Growing strawberries as an annual crop
It’s entirely possible to do the following if you don’t want to deal with dismantling your vertical structures for the winter. And in the middle zone, this is inevitable, since the soil in small containers will freeze completely during the winter.
In early spring, seedlings of remontant strawberries of the day-neutral variety are purchased. It is these varieties that, under favorable conditions, are capable of bearing fruit almost without interruption for 9-10 months. As an example, we can name varieties such as Queen Elizabeth 2, Brighton, Temptation, Elvira, Juan and others.
The seedlings are planted in containers made from plastic bottles according to option 2, described earlier. The containers are placed in any bright and warm place and watered moderately. It is possible to immediately place them on the balcony if it is insulated. In this case, in the future there is no need to move them anywhere, they will always be on the balcony and regularly delight you with their harvest.
If you want to grow strawberries on your plot, then with the onset of warm days (usually in May), the seedlings can be transferred to the plot and placed the bottles as your imagination tells you: either on a vertical support, or suspended, or placed on any horizontal surfaces.
All summer until the frost, you will be harvesting strawberry bushes.A month before frost, you need to carefully separate the rooted rosettes from the mother bushes and plant them in separate containers. This is your main planting material for next year. They can be stored either in a frost-free basement or on the balcony. In winter, you only need to periodically moisten the soil, making sure that it does not dry out completely.
With the onset of frost, the main strawberry bushes are either simply thrown away, or the strongest of them are transported to home conditions to extend the harvest period by a month or two.
In the spring, everything is repeated, but seedlings obtained from their own strawberry bushes are used.
Conclusion
As you can see, there is nothing too complicated about growing strawberries in plastic bottles; rather, it is simply an unusual process for many. But it provides many opportunities that you must take advantage of in order to fully enjoy the result of your labors.
