Spring is the time when gardeners lay the foundation for a future crop by growing seedlings. In this way, many berries and other fruit plants multiply. But it's worth talking about strawberries separately. This berry is popular with garden owners due to its aroma and great taste. In addition, it has many vitamins and nutrients. It is propagated, usually from a mustache or by dividing a bush, but there are other ways. For example, strawberry seedlings can grow from the seeds of a plant.
To get good seedlings, just go to any store for gardeners, where you can buy strawberry seeds at affordable prices. Moreover, a wide assortment allows you to choose exactly the sort that you need. On sale there are large and small-fruited plants, remontant, which can bear fruit all summer. It is easiest to engage in breeding seedlings of small-fruited strawberries, which refers to repair varieties. It has a greater germination capacity than a variety that produces large fruits.
When planting seeds for seedlings in boxes with soil, it must be covered with a film and make sure that the soil is moist. You can grow seeds for seedlings in berry blocks, based on a plastic bag filled with a mixture of perlite and peat. Along the bag you need to make holes for the seeds.
At home, the seeds germinate after thirty to forty days. When shoots appear, strawberry seedlings should be moved to a brighter place. If a fungus appears in your mini-greenhouse due to increased humidity, the earth must be treated with an antifungal drug. The film can be removed only after the appearance of leaves on seedlings, and this must be done gradually, opening the plants for an hour or two. Watering the plants should be done with caution in order to avoid overmoistening of the earthy coma and black leg disease of the berry.
Like many other plants, strawberry seedlings require repeated picking. Transplanting plants for the third time, they must be placed in separate containers. You can plant seedlings on individual peat tablets.
As a fertilizer for seedlings, it is best to use water-soluble preparations. To the question of when to plant seedlings, gardeners are individually fit. Some consider January a suitable month, while others plant strawberry seeds in March. Plants that were planted in the winter fall into the open ground by fully developed bushes. But in this case, strawberry seedlings require a constant supply of light. To this end, plants can provide artificial lighting and, if necessary, heating.
Plants before planting in the ground (in May-June) should be hardened, for which they are recommended to be taken out into the open air, first in the afternoon, and then at night. Seedlings can be placed on the balcony or loggia. In this case, you need to monitor night temperatures to avoid frost. It is better to choose cool, cloudy weather for transplanting plants into the ground.
Gardeners have their own varietal preferences - Gigantella, Festival Chamomile, Lord, Moscow Jubilee (Mashenka) varieties. Early strawberry varieties are very popular , which allows me to enjoy delicious, fragrant berries in the middle of summer. These include the early Chisinau varieties, the Scarlet Dawn with large fruits of twenty grams, Alpha, Beauty Zagoria and others. The earliest varieties are best grown indoors, in specially designed greenhouses, where the berries ripen quickly enough.