With the onset of the first spring days, gardeners, rushing to their plots, begin to process plantings. And if berries grow on the plot, then such troubles are always full. And especially a lot of effort and attention requires processing strawberries in early spring. Indeed, a rich harvest depends, first of all, on the correctness of spring work on the beds.
Garden culture
Care for strawberries in early spring is necessary primarily for the most basic result - getting a good harvest. This berry is a very moody garden crop. Many of those who like to feast on it, but have never been involved in gardening themselves, believe that it is enough to plant seedlings in the garden, wait a bit, and you can already harvest.
In fact, if you do not know how to process strawberries in spring, then its cultivation can bring only grief, and not juicy red delicious berries. This culture is very difficult to weed. She needs to constantly trim the tendrils, try so that the old leaves do not interfere with growing new ones, etc. But if in the end they become too small, and the fruits do not ripen at all, this means only one thing: the gardener has not fully learned how to care for strawberries in the spring. It should be noted that the work lasts until late autumn.
After a cold winter
For the normal development of strawberries in spring, when planting, you need to choose a sunny and well-protected from the wind place where the soil will be rich in trace elements. And although this berry cannot be called winter-hardy, however, during the cold season, old and already sufficiently developed plants predominantly die out, while young ones mostly survive. At the same time, you need to know that early-planted or untimely opened plants can die from frost.
What to do with strawberries in spring
Everyone who has planted vegetables, fruits or flowers at least once knows that, starting in March, every day, until the end of May, counts. This time is an important time for caring for many berries. You need to know how to care for strawberries in spring. The processing includes getting rid of last year's shoots and leaves, and pest control, and feeding, and watering.
Harvesting and cultivating
The very first job should be cleaning the site. How to process strawberries in spring? First you need to carefully grab last year's foliage in heaps. At the same time, you should know that it is impossible to burn leaves in any case, since at the same time dry vegetation emits a very dangerous substance - dioxin. Therefore, it would be more correct to add all the last year’s bedding together with pests that have successfully wintered in it and simply take it out and take it out. Experienced gardeners know that such cleaning has a double benefit: firstly, pests are destroyed as much as possible, and secondly, the roots begin to warm better under the still not strong March sun.
Before you process strawberries in the spring, immediately after putting the beds in order, they need to be well loosened. You can not ignore the trails made between them. Simultaneously with loosening, weeds must also be removed and, after finishing, fertilizing.
Chemical processing of strawberries in the spring from pests
After loosening and weeding immediately before flowering the berries, as well as after harvesting, measures are taken to treat the plant with chemicals such as Caesar or Taurus. During the appearance of the ovary or picking berries, another agent is used - the biological product "Acrofit". If there are a lot of dry leaves on the bushes, the right way to control pests is to transfer strawberry plantings to another, cleaner place. The infected bed is mowed and sprayed with a chemical to prevent the disease from invading the entire area. When planting, you need to use clean, damage-free planting material.
Spring recovery
Spring strawberries Helps plants recover more easily after winter. To do this, clean the bushes from dry leaves. In this case, it is necessary to remove the top layer on the soil with which strawberries were mulched in the fall. Two or three centimeters of distant land will take with them a huge number of different pests that settled in the mulch during the winter. It is not worth starting from spring to sprinkle a thick layer of soil around the bushes, because sprouts in this case will start growing for a long enough time. This means that the berries can ripen with an impressive delay.
Some gardeners have their own special approach to how to care for strawberries in spring. It lies in the fact that they do not clean the autumn bedding. In this case, experts advise to well loosen the aisles, up to seven centimeters in depth. And then very soon juicy berries will appear on the plant, which are loved not only by children, but also by adults. Only such processing of strawberries in the spring, combined with the efforts applied to it, will surely reward the gardener with an excellent harvest.
Be sure to mulch at this time and give fertilizing to plants. To do this, sprinkle the beds with sawdust or small straws. Sometimes they use ordinary humus, fertilizing with fertilizers, including nitrogen.
To increase yield
Experienced gardeners who already know perfectly how to process strawberries in spring recommend that the bushes be sprayed with urea solution before starting the flowering process. It is prepared by diluting 30 g of the substance in 10 liters of water. Similar processing of strawberries in the spring by almost a quarter increases its yield.
If there is a danger of frost, you should always take care of the safety of the first crop. With such a threat, planting berries must be saved by smoke: burn grass or dry leaves. Moreover, it is necessary to begin this work before the start of frost from the night and continue almost until the sun appears.
Spring dressing
Old leaves from strawberry crops are not recommended to be removed immediately. It’s more correct to wait until young shoots come out. And their appearance, in turn, is a signal talking about the onset of the need for the first feeding. It is a kind of care for strawberries in early spring. It is prepared as follows: in 10 liters of water, dissolve a tablespoon of ammonium sulfate with two glasses of liquid mullein. Each plant should receive 1000 mg of nutrition.
Before the flowering of many berries, including strawberries, you need to use another solution: in a ten-liter bowl, dilute a small spoonful of potassium sulfate with two glasses of nitrophoska. You need to water this composition every bush, spending half a liter of fertilizing.
Experienced gardeners know how to care for strawberries in the spring. They are in dry weather once, even before flowering, the bushes well watered. Then water should be added only when necessary. Moreover, it is better to water the beds before flowering by sprinkling, so that the leaves develop better. In the future, only the soil will be moistened.
In those areas whose owners know how to care for strawberries in spring, with sufficient use of fertilizers and competent protection from various pests, the plants will be strong and resistant to diseases. It will be easier for them not only to winter, but also to recover from the cold. After all, frost will not do them any harm.
Strawberries can withstand temperatures in the winter of up to thirty degrees of frost in the presence of a snow layer of 20 cm. If there is little snow cover, then plants, even during milder cold, freeze and even die. If there is very little snow, then in the spring, straw-covered plantings must be opened, and as early as possible to avoid the appearance of mice.
Spring spraying
But the work does not end there. Many growers ask how to process strawberries in early spring. Experts believe that after the appearance of fresh shoots and leaves under the berry, it is necessary to add a solution of sodium sulfate with mullein, and in early May - mineral fertilizers. And when the buds bloom, the beds need to be treated with copper sulfate. Knowing how to spray strawberries in the spring, many diseases can be avoided.
Care Features
It is advisable to water the berry plants once a week, and at night or in the early morning. Experts recommend the use of drip irrigation: in this case, water will not fall on the plant, the sun will not burn it, and the plant will not die. In addition, it is necessary to monitor the appearance of weeds. Although mulching does not allow the weeds to germinate, nevertheless, they must be disposed of very carefully so that the water freely enters the root system. If the site will thoroughly care for strawberries annually in early spring, you can be sure that the berries will be large, and the result, i.e. Harvested, will certainly please with its abundance.
Necessary tools
For spring strawberry processing you will need:
- bucket;
- garden sprayer;
- secateurs;
- hoe.
Fertilizers need to be stocked with chicken droppings, mullein, potassium nitrate, Nitroammofoska or other mineral fertilizers, colloidal sulfur, Fitosporin and other drugs to combat diseases and pests.
Types of strawberries fruiting in late spring
There are several types of strawberries, classified by time of harvest:
- June. Fruits in late spring, gives a lot of berries, but has some disadvantages. Berries on it appear only once. In addition, in the first year, it is necessary to destroy all the flowers so that the plant subsequently consolidates.
- Year-round. In fact, it brings the crop only in spring and autumn, while in June it is necessary to pick off inflorescences so that the plant is covered with berries again in autumn.
Diseases and Pests
Processing strawberries in the spring from disease not only protects the plant and the crop, but also increases it. The golden rule of gardeners: it is better to prevent a disease than to fight it.
Gray rot in early spring
There are a fairly large number of diseases that affect, including strawberries. Gray rot is very common among them, which is considered a rather dangerous fungal disease. It appears during prolonged wet and cool weather. Methods of combating gray rot in the spring include the destruction of diseased plants in the beds, because along with wind or rain, the disease can spread throughout the plantation.
In this case, it is necessary to treat the plant with copper chloroxide even before flowering begins, based on: a tablespoon per liter of water. For every square meter of the affected area, you need a thousand milligrams of solution. The second treatment is carried out after the last strawberry harvest - two tablespoons of copper chloroxide and liquid soap are dissolved in ten liters of water.
Another disease is spotting, which is white, brown and brown. The disease appears in the summer and autumn. The leaves of the plant begin to turn brown and gradually fall off. They fight the disease twice: in early spring, spraying the leaves, and abundantly processing after the final harvest.
How to deal with pests in the spring
Many gardeners before planting seedlings purchased, necessarily process it. To do this, it is immersed for fifteen minutes in relatively hot water (temperature at a maximum of forty-five degrees) so that the pests, if any, die. When planting bushes, you need to make sure that the distance between the plants is more than thirty, and between the rows - at least seventy centimeters.
In the spring, some summer residents spray their strawberry plantations with a decoction of tomato tops. Such a decoction is being prepared since autumn: a kilogram of harvested tomato greens is poured with warm water, it is well insisted. Then it is boiled, filtered, laundry soap is added to the mixture.
No less effective pests are affected by spraying strawberries with dandelion infusion. The fresh leaves of this ubiquitous weed are chopped and poured with fifty degrees of water. Then for several hours everything is insisted, shaken, filtered. The resulting solution is sprayed with strawberry leaves.