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Some gardeners consider strawberries to be a finicky plant that requires special care, while others claim that the crop can grow in any conditions. Be that as it may, you will have to put in a lot of effort to get a generous harvest. Planting of bushes begins in August and ends in September. By this time, the seats should already be prepared. At home, you can use different beds for strawberries, but the future harvest will depend on how they are arranged.
Where is the best place to make a garden bed?
It is better to grow strawberries and strawberries in a well-lit area. The plant loves light and warmth, but if such a place is located in a lowland, it is undesirable to create a bed here. The fact is that the soil in low areas can freeze even in late spring, which threatens the plant’s death.
Location beds for planting strawberries even affects the taste of the berries. Despite the fact that the culture loves light, it can also be planted in a shaded area. Ripe berries will have little sugar, but will acquire more flavor.This harvest is ideal for preserving jam, preparing drying and other processing. If strawberries are grown only for fresh consumption, then they are planted in the sun. The berries ripen less aromatic, but with a large accumulation of sugar.
You cannot create strawberry beds in the place where representatives of this family grew last year. Plants draw the same nutrients from the soil and also have common pests. Most of them overwinter in the soil, and with the onset of spring they awaken and begin to destroy the new crop. Fruit trees have a bad effect on strawberries: apple trees, cherries, apricots, plums, etc. It is undesirable for rose hips and bird cherry to bloom nearby. If raspberries, blackberries, strawberries or roses grew on the site last year, you should refuse to plant strawberries in this place.
Rules for preparing a seat
Most often, strawberries are simply planted in the garden or garden, without creating vertical beds or other complex structures. This method is also effective if one simple rule is followed when preparing the site:
- All debris is removed from the area allocated for strawberry plantings. In the garden this could be foliage and small branches.
- Even if the garden has been plowed since the fall, the area is dug up again with a shovel to a bayonet depth.
- Fertilizing the soil is done with humus. Fertilizer is scattered at the rate of 1 bucket per 1 m2 beds.
After soil preparation Markings are made in the garden bed in the form of stripes for planting strawberries.
When making a bed for strawberries, you need to remember about the furrows separating them. Excess rainwater will accumulate in these depressions. Strawberries love watering, but they are not moisture-loving plants. From an excess of moisture around the root system, rot with a large number of parasites forms. The furrows will drain excess water away from the roots. The grooves themselves for strawberries should not be dug deep. The plant will grow slower, which will affect the amount of harvest.
The finished bed with strawberries should be on a hill. Intermediate furrows ideally deepen by 25 cm. This is enough for good water drainage. During the harvest, a person walks along these furrows. The integrity of the hole with the plant is preserved, but the groove itself must not be disturbed, otherwise the drainage of water will be impaired.
Optimal sizes of strawberry beds and planting rules
So, it's time to find out how to properly set up a strawberry bed. To achieve good yields, we adhere to the following rules:
- The holes made for strawberry bushes should be located at a distance of approximately 40 cm from each other. Such parameters will provide free space for the good development of plants.
- The width of the strip where the strawberries will grow is kept within 20 cm. A furrow 30 cm wide is cut between each strip. The result is one bed 50 cm wide, consisting of a strip and a furrow.
- The location of the stripes on the site is done in the direction from east to west. With this planting, the strawberries receive uniform sunlight.
After making a bed for strawberries, they begin to plant the plants.This must be done carefully so as not to damage the root system. After planting all the bushes, the plants are watered with room water at the root. It is advisable not to wet the foliage.
Even to save space, the strawberry bed should not be overcrowded with plants. Close proximity of bushes will lead to their slow development. It's worse if one of the plants gets sick. If planted closely, the disease will instantly spread throughout all plantings. In addition, we must remember that strawberries in the spring send out long tendrils that can intertwine with each other. Overgrown furrows make weeding difficult weed. The mustache can be accidentally cut off with a hoe, and even snag the main bush.
It should be assumed that any strawberry beds will last no more than four years. After this, the bushes are transplanted to another place. During this time, the plants suck out all the useful substances from the soil, and with further cultivation of strawberries, the yield will be reduced and the berries will become very small.
Low strawberry bed using German technology
Above we looked at the simplest option for arranging a strawberry bed in a vegetable garden or garden. The method is considered simple and accessible to beginning gardeners. However, the simplest beds do not allow you to get the maximum strawberry harvest that the plants are capable of producing. Now we will look at what other technologies for growing strawberries exist, and we will start with the German garden bed.
This system involves the production of boxes. Boards made of boards or any other material serve as dividers for strips of strawberries in the garden bed, and are installed instead of furrows.That is, you need to make a bed from 40 to 80 cm wide, consisting of one strip of strawberries, and fence it with sides. If the bed is made with a width of 80 cm or a little more, then planting strawberries in two rows is allowed.
When making a low strawberry bed using German technology, the following steps are performed:
- The area is marked according to the size of the box. This place is cleared of debris and weeds.
- The box is moved to the side. At this place, a turf layer about 40 cm deep is removed. A fence is installed in the resulting depression. The bottom of the pit is covered with any organic waste that can rot. You can use small tree branches, newspapers, corn stalks, etc.
- The organic matter is covered with a layer of fertile soil on top, after which the surface of the bed is leveled. Strawberries are planted in rows, the number of which depends on the width of the fence. One row is made in narrow boxes. If the width of the fence allows you to make several rows, then a furrow 50 cm wide is made between them. After planting all the strawberry bushes, brick or tile paths are laid in these areas.
The presence of fences on strawberry plantations has a positive effect not only on the amount of harvest, but also on plant maintenance. The gardener gets free access to each bush. This makes watering, weeding, fertilizing and other procedures related to caring for the plant easier. Fences prevent the soil from being washed away during rain and creeping weeds from entering the strawberry bed. If the plants in one fence become sick, the disease will not be able to affect neighboring plantings. The border of the strawberry bed solves the problem of tangling mustaches. They do not intertwine with each other, as happens in a regular garden.
Despite the presence of fences, low beds for strawberries still need to be watered using a special technology. When using a garden watering can, watering is done in a circular motion, preventing the soil near the bush from being washed away until roots appear. This process can be done using a hose. In this case, a rag that can pass water well is wrapped around its end. Watering is carried out at the root of the plant.
Careless watering of the beds with a hose with a diffuser will lead to erosion of the soil under the bushes and on the paths. The end result is a fence with a bunch of plants mixed in the mud.
The video talks about warm beds for strawberries:
Several other ideas for arranging beds for planting strawberries
In addition to achieving the main goal of obtaining a harvest, strawberry beds can become a good decoration for the yard. Plants are ideal for vertical gardening, while allowing you to enjoy delicious fruits. Now we will look at the photo of the strawberry beds with our own hands, and briefly familiarize ourselves with the technology of their manufacture.
Raised beds
Do raised beds for planting strawberries you can use any wooden or plastic boxes. They can even be placed in the yard instead of flower beds. Thanks to the lattice structure, box beds have excellent drainage.
Vertical beds
If there is only enough space in the garden to grow basic vegetables, a vertical beds for strawberries, allowing you to pick berries without bending over, standing at full height. Any containers are taken as a basis, be they flower pots or trimmed plastic bottles. They are attached to any vertical structure.A chain-link fence is best, but you can use a dead tree trunk, barn wall, etc. A strawberry bush is planted in each pot, where it bears fruit all summer long.
Popular vertical beds made of PVC sewer pipe. Using tees, elbows and crosses, you can assemble an entire wall with growing strawberries. Pipes with a diameter of 100 mm are covered with fertile soil, holes are cut in the side walls, where the bushes are planted.
In the video you can see what a vertical bed made from a pipe represents:
Wooden pyramid
Strawberry beds placed on a wooden pyramid look beautiful. A three- or four-cornered pyramid is made from timber and boards, where cells for soil with plants are installed on the side walls. The structure can be installed in the yard instead of a flower garden.
Vertical bed made of bags
When a gardener has a question, how to make beds for strawberries, if there are no building materials at hand, ordinary cloth bags will be the way out. You can sew them yourself from durable fabric, burlap or geotextile. Each bag is filled with soil and secured to any vertical support, as was done with flower pots. It is convenient to free strawberries planted in bags from weeds. Water the plants through the upper open part of the bag.
Pyramids made from car tires
Old car tires make excellent pyramid-shaped strawberry beds. Only for this you will have to assemble tires of different diameters and cut out the side shelf on one side close to the tread. Starting with the largest tire, a pyramid is folded, filling the space with fertile soil. When the structure is assembled, 4–5 strawberry bushes are planted in each tire.
If you can only find tires of the same size, then they are simply folded one on top of the other, filled with soil, and windows are cut on the side of the tread, where strawberries are planted.
Conclusion
Now that you know how to make strawberry beds correctly, you can try growing delicious berries in the summer. Let the first harvest not be too generous; with experience, everything will improve.
