It's no wonder that strawberries areThe most widespread berry culture, growing in our gardens and orchards. Its sweet, juicy and fragrant fruits bring pleasure to children and adults in fresh, frozen form, with sugar and sour cream, in the form of jam, juices or compotes.
Description of strawberry garden
Garden strawberries are a perennial plant,The height of the bush is no more than 25 centimeters. The leaves of the large strawberry bushes are located on long petioles. White flowers have five leaves each. The fruits are fragrant, with a pronounced sweet and sour taste.
Wild strawberry, the description of which is presentedabove, is truly a wonderful berry. Despite all its sweetness, it when consumed reduces the amount of sugar in the blood. To ease the manifestations of cholelithiasis will help one glass of strawberry juice, drunk in the morning on an empty stomach. A list of useful substances and vitamins contained in this berry, can envy any chemist's vitamin. It contains carotene, phosphorus, acids (malic and citric), sugar, manganese, potassium, iron salts.
Varieties of strawberry garden
Depending on the maturity period, strawberry varieties are divided into early, middle and late. The size of the fruit allows us to distinguish the following varieties:
- Small-fruited, whose mass of fruit - less than five grams.A new and well-established brand in this category is Alexandra. The size of the fruit is one centimeter, which, however, is greater than that of other similar varieties.
- With the size of the fruit from five to fifteen grams.In this weight category, the Komsomolka, which has ribbed brilliant berries, well tolerated cold, but demanding to care, proved to be very good. Good shows himself in our latitudes Early Maherauha. It has an average winter hardiness and good resistance to diseases. Here it is worth mentioning Knight, Zenith, Zeng-Zengan.
- Wild strawberry large-berry has berries withweighing fifteen grams or more. Of course, this category includes everyone's favorite Gigantella and Maxim. These powerful thick bushes with matte leaves are difficult to confuse with other varieties. With enough watering, the fruits are really gigantic. A large harvest and subsequent smaller, than the previous varieties, berries will please the Festival, Relay, Cinderella.
Moreover, the strawberries have a lot of patchwork varieties, that is, yielding several times a year.
Choosing several varieties that differ in terms of maturation, you can extend the fleeting period of fruiting strawberries. A careful approach to selection will ensure the duration of harvesting in six months.
Planting strawberries: choosing a place
Strawberry garden, planting and grooming in spring forwhich should be careful, prefers smooth surfaces, well-lit, a slight slope is possible. Steep slopes do not fit, since with them in winter the wind blows all the snow, and in summer it dries up the soil. Depressions and lowlands are unsuitable because of the possible stagnation of water in them, which strawberries will not survive. The groundwater level should not be more than one meter below the ground. Moreover, in such places, cold air accumulates, damaging the flowers of strawberries during spring frosts.
Predecessors for strawberry garden: favorable and not very
When choosing a place and soil, attention should be paid toand that which grew on the selected site in previous years. Favorable predecessors for wild strawberry among vegetable crops will be garlic, onion, radish, parsley, carrots. It is not necessary to plant strawberries after pumpkin and cruciferous crops, since they are prone to root rot.
Potatoes, flax, beets can provoke infection with a nematode. Unsuitable predecessors will be sea buckthorn, raspberry, felt cherry, which are subject to verticillium fading.
Suitable substrate for garden strawberries
Cultivation of garden strawberries is possible in conditionsalmost any substrate, but it should be well-fertilized, not over-dried and not too wet. Too acid soil will require liming. It should also be remembered that the root system of strawberry garden is demanding to oxygen nutrition, that is, the soil must be breathable, loose.
Preparing the soil for planting
On sites with closely located groundwater, it is necessary to raise the beds to a height of 30-35 centimeters. On dry soil, they can not be formed.
Planting strawberry garden in the spring requirespreliminary preparation of the substrate, which should be done in the fall. The preparation of the soil consists in digging it and applying fertilizers under the top layer. What should be done depends largely on the substrate. In the loam soil, add compost or manure. The sandy soil requires peat, sawdust, humus, turf soil, clayey and peat substrata - sand, humus, wood chips.
To dig a soil it is necessary on one bayonet of a shovel.Extra weedy rhizomes and encountered larvae should be removed. Then the beds are leveled. On top of the already prepared soil a thin layer of sand pours out, allowing to protect the planting from pests and rot.
Immediately before planting, the soil can be treated with a solution of copper sulfate and watered.
How does the wild strawberry propagate?
Propagated wild strawberry, the spring care for which can not be ignored, in the garden in several ways:
- by means of seeds;
- division of bushes;
- shoots-mustache.
Each of the methods has its own nuances. Let's talk about the most simple and acceptable for most strawberry varieties. This reproduction is the division of bushes.
Choose the most fruitful bushes, in thisIn case and from shoots, you can expect a good harvest. Seedlings of wild strawberry are taken from a bush two to three years old. Do this after harvesting. At the same time, the sprouts nearest the parent plant should be selected. They are considered to be the strongest. The uterine bush can be further fertilized with a growth stimulant.
Planting of strawberry seedlings
Suitable planting material must haveseveral leaves and roots five centimeters long. To separate the seedlings from the mother bush, it is better to choose a cloudy cool day. If the weather is hot and dry, the seedlings should be covered with grass from the sun, covering materials or, in extreme cases, newspapers.
For planting seedlings, dig a small hole. Pour the water there, plant the bush before all the water in the soil is gone. Roots must be straightened down.
When planting it is important not to put the heart in the ground.Planted strawberry garden in the spring. Care and feeding it requires careful. Especially if the soil around the bush is not promulgated. The optimal spring landing time is March-April, autumn-August-September. Mulching makes it easier to care, increase the yield of strawberry garden, shorten the maturation period. Care of the garden strawberries in the early spring in the future is to ensure that when sunny days, mulch from the garden is scraped into the passage. They do this in order to warm up the earth around the bush as soon as possible. During the summer, the layer of mulch is poured, its thickness should be on average 7-8 centimeters.
The bushes will take two to three weeks to settle down. If the bush is tied, then it must be removed and a new one planted in its place, otherwise it can cause the disease of other bushes.
Post-planting care for strawberry garden
A generous harvest of strawberry garden can be obtainedwith good care. The first spring sun, melting snow, warm soil ... All the plants are awoken, including the wild strawberry. Care in the spring, especially the early, the bushes is simply necessary. If you ignore this, then the harvest will not please.
In the first year of disembarkation, care should be directed to successful development and a favorable wintering. In the case of well-fertilized soil, fertilizing the bushes will not take several years.
Strawberry garden, spring care for whichwill provide the gardener with a good harvest, requires the removal of dry and drooping leaves, as well as last year's peduncles. Do this not with your hands, but with garden scissors or pruners. It is better to remove old leaves after the appearance of young leaves.
If you do not plan to grow seedlings, thenExpanding mustache must be cut. Otherwise, bushes lose strength, and beds - a neat appearance. Carefully we must loosen the soil between the rows. Otherwise, the yield may decrease.
Wood ash is fed at least two-year-old strawberry strawberries. Care in the spring with such fertilizer will protect the bushes from hitting with bare slugs.
They need to sprinkle the roots that have been left behind for the winterhumus from leaves or mulch. Wild strawberry garden, the reviews of which among gardeners are encouraging, requires good watering at the time when the young foliage is actively growing, and after flowering, since a shallowly located root system can very quickly dry up.
For spraying strawberries before flowering you can use Bordeaux liquid, it will help protect bushes from various fungal diseases and spotting.
Strawberry garden, planting and grooming in spring forwhich are described in the article, grows in one place for not more than five years. After this period, the bed should be renewed by planting young bushes on other beds. Have a good harvest!
