Content
Strawberries are a favorite berry for both adults and children. Indescribable taste and aroma, undoubted health benefits are its main advantages. This delicious berry belongs to the Rosaceae family and is a hybrid of Chilean and Virginia strawberries. Both parents come from America, only the Virginian one comes from the North, and the Chilean one comes from the South. Currently, there are about 10,000 varieties of this sweet delicacy, but the most common and traditionally grown ones are much smaller.
Usually strawberries are grown in garden beds, but the size of the garden plots does not always allow you to plant as many strawberries as you want. Gardeners have long been using alternative planting methods - in old barrels or pyramids made from car tires. In such structures, strawberry bushes are arranged vertically. Lately for vertical landing Large diameter PVC pipes are increasingly being used. They are easier to work with and strawberries in tubes PVC planted vertically looks so attractive that it could easily become part of a garden design.
Strawberries love light all day long and will not bear fruit in the shade.
What is needed for vertical beds
Of course, pipes are needed. The larger their diameter, the better - for each strawberry bush there will be a larger volume of soil. As a rule, the diameter of the outer pipe is selected from 150 mm. You will need another PVC pipe - internal. Strawberries in vertical pipes will be watered and fed through it. The diameter of the watering pipe should not be large - even 15 mm is enough.
To ensure that no leakage of water or fertilizing mixture occurs at the bottom of the vertical structure, pipe For watering you need to close it with a plug. To carry out watering, the thin pipe must have holes. Warning! Soil from a large pipe can clog the holes intended for irrigation.
To prevent this from happening, the watering device must be protected with a thin cloth or nylon stocking. Geotextiles are also good for this.
To drill holes you will need a drill, and to cut pieces of a certain length you will need a knife. Pebbles or gravel as drainage will prevent the accumulation of water at the base of the pipe, and, consequently, the rotting of plants. The soil for planting will also have to be prepared. Well, the most important thing is high-quality planting material of suitable varieties.
Making a vertical bed
- We determine the height of the wide pipes so that it is convenient to care for the strawberry plantation. Using a knife, cut pieces of the required size.
- Using a large diameter nozzle, we make holes in a wide pipe. The diameter of the hole is such that it is convenient to plant bushes there, usually at least 7 cm. We make the first hole at a height of 20 cm from the ground.If we store the structure in winter, laying it on the ground, there is no need to make holes on the side that faces north. For comfortable growth of strawberries, the distance between the planting windows should not be less than 20 cm. A checkerboard pattern is the best way to arrange the holes.
- We measure and cut pieces of thin pipe intended for irrigation. To make watering and feeding strawberries more convenient, we make a thin pipe 15 cm longer than the planting pipe.
- We perforate the upper 2/3 of the watering device with a drill or screwdriver; the holes are not spaced out very often.
- We wrap the watering pipe with prepared fabric, which should be secured, for example, with a rope.
- Attach a plug to the bottom of the irrigation pipe. This is necessary so that water and liquid fertilizers do not flow down and are evenly distributed between the strawberry bushes.
- We close the bottom of the large pipe with a lid with holes and secure it. If you have to reschedule vertical bed to a new location, the structure will not crumble.
- To selected for vertical bed place a thick pipe. For better stability, you can dig the pipe a little into the ground. We place the prepared drainage at its bottom. It performs two functions at once: it prevents the soil in the lower part of the pipe from becoming too wet and makes the vertical bed more stable.
- Now we fix the irrigation pipe in the center of the thick pipe.
- We fill the thick pipe with soil.
You can watch the video on how to make such a bed from a pipe:
It should be nutritious, but not overly nutritious.You can’t take soil from the beds where nightshades grew, much less strawberries, so that the berry grower doesn’t get late blight.
Soil composition for vertical beds
It is best to prepare turf soil for growing strawberry bushes. If this is not possible, a mixture of garden soil or forest soil from under deciduous trees and aged peat in equal proportions will do. For every 10 kg of mixture add 1 kg of humus. To this amount add 10 g of potassium salt, 12 g of ammonium nitrate and 20 g of superphosphate. The mixture is thoroughly mixed and the space between the pipes is filled with it, slightly compacting.
Seedlings are planted in moist soil.
Planting seedlings
If phytosporin is used in the form of a paste already enriched with humates, there is no need to add humate to the solution for treating the roots. Exposure time is six hours; seedlings are kept in the shade.
Young rosettes with a developed root system are planted. The roots should not be longer than 8 cm. The length of the roots can be reduced by cutting them. Attention! Never tuck the roots of strawberries when planting. She will be sick for a long time and may simply not take root.
After planting, the strawberry bushes need to be shaded for survival. You can cover the vertical bed with non-woven material.
Plant care
The soil in a vertical bed dries out quickly, so you need to water the vertical plantation often. Finding out whether watering is needed is very simple: if the soil is dry at a depth of 2 cm, it’s time to moisten the plantings.
Fertilizing is a necessary element of caring for vertical beds. Intensive fruiting is possible only with good nutrition. Therefore, in addition to the three traditional feedings - in early spring, at the budding stage and after fruiting, at least two more will have to be carried out. A complete complex fertilizer with microelements and the addition of humate for root growth is the most suitable option. Closed soil determines the characteristics of fertilizing. They need to be carried out more often, but with solutions of lower concentration.
Strawberry varieties for vertical plantation
Growing strawberries in PVC pipes has a number of features. One of them is the correct choice of variety. There are many varieties of this berry, differing not only in taste and appearance, but also in ripening time. To grow strawberries, as strawberries are correctly called, in a small space, you need to choose a variety that will perform well under these conditions.
The best option would be to plant an ampelous remontant variety.
Of course, such strawberries will not curl, since they are not capable of doing this by nature, but hanging bunches of strawberries will look especially attractive. And their ability to bear fruit additionally on newly formed rosettes significantly increases the yield. Remontant varieties ripen quite early and bear fruit in waves almost the entire season until frost. But growing such varieties requires sufficient nutrition and compliance with all growing conditions.
If the gardener can provide the plants with such care, then the most suitable varieties and hybrids are as follows.
Elan F1
The hybrid was bred in Holland.The first berries appear already in June; Elana bushes produce the rest of the harvest throughout the season until late autumn. The berries are medium-sized and large. Their maximum size is 60 g. The taste characteristics of this hybrid are beyond praise. If you provide it with proper care, you can harvest up to 2 kg of first-class berries per season. Elan is resistant to pests and diseases and easily tolerates errors in care.
Geneva
An American variety that has been around for 20 years. It begins to bear fruit in June and does not stop doing so until the coldest weather, producing wave after wave of sweet and tasty berries weighing up to 50 grams. Its peculiarity is its unpretentiousness in cultivation.
Conclusion
If everything is done correctly, you can get the result as in the photo:
