How to treat strawberries in the spring? Care of strawberries in early spring

With the onset of the first spring days, gardeners, rushing to their sites, begin to process landings. And if the area grows berries, then such trouble is always full. And especially a lot of effort and attention requires the treatment of strawberries in early spring. After all, a rich harvest depends, first of all, on the correctness of spring work in the beds.

Garden culture

Caring for strawberries in early spring is necessary primarily for the most basic result - obtaining a good harvest. This berry is a very capricious garden culture. Many of those who like to feast on it, but never themselves engaged in gardening, believe that it is enough just 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 grief only, not juicy red delicious berries. This culture is very difficult to weed. She needs to constantly cut the antennae, try to keep the old leaves from growing new, etc. But if in the end they become too small, and the fruits do not ripen at all, this means only one: the gardener has not studied to the end how to take care of Strawberries in the spring. At the same time, it must be said 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 securely protected from the wind place, where the soil will be rich in trace elements. And although this berry can not be called winter hardy, however, during the cold season, older and already sufficiently developed plants are predominantly dying, while the young mostly survive. In this case, you need to know that early planted or untimely open plants can die from frost.

What to do with strawberries in spring

Everyone who at least once planted vegetables, fruits or flowers knows that, starting in March, every day, until the end of May, is in the account. This time is important sometimes for the care of many berries. You need to know how to care for strawberries in the spring. In the process of processing includes disposal of last year's shoots and leaves, and pest control, and fertilizing, and watering.

Cleaning and loosening

The first job should be cleaning the site. How to treat strawberries in the spring? It is necessary first to gently shave last year's foliage in handfuls. At the same time, you should know that it is impossible to burn leaves in any case, because at the same time dry vegetation releases a very dangerous substance - dioxin. Therefore, all the last year's podsypku with successfully overwintering pests in it will be more correct to simply collect and take out. Experienced gardener know that this harvest has a double benefit: first, the pests are destroyed as much as possible, and secondly, the roots begin to warm up better under the still weak March sun.

Before the spring to process the strawberries, immediately after bringing the beds in order they need a good loosen. You can not ignore the trails made between them. Simultaneously with loosening it is necessary to remove the appeared weeds, and after finishing, to make additional fertilizing.

Chemical treatment of strawberries in spring from pests

After loosening and weeding immediately before blossoming of berries, and also 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 means is used - the biochemical "Akrofit". In the event that there are a lot of dry leaves on the bushes, the correct way to control pests is to transfer the planting of strawberries to another, cleaner place. The infected bed is cut and sprinkled with a chemical preparation to prevent the disease from seizing the entire site. When planting, you need to use a clean, no damaging planting material.

Spring recovery

Processing strawberries in spring Helps plants to recover more easily after winter. To do this, you need to clean the bushes from dry leaves. In this case, it is necessary to remove the top layer on the soil, which mulch the strawberries in autumn. Two or three centimeters of the removed land will carry with it a huge number of various pests that settled in mulch during the winter. It is not necessary to sprinkle a thick layer of soil around the bush from spring, because the sprouts in this case will start growing long enough. Hence, and berries can ripen with an impressive delay.

Some gardeners have their own particular approach to how to care for strawberries in the spring. It consists in the fact that they do not remove the autumn padding. In this case, experts advise to properly loosen row spacing, up to seven centimeters in depth. And then very soon on the plant will appear juicy berries, which are loved not only by children, but also by adults. Only such treatment of strawberries in spring in combination with the efforts made to it will necessarily reward the grower with an excellent harvest.

It is necessary to conduct mulching at this time and give fertilizing to plants. To do this, sprinkle the beds with sawdust or small straw. Sometimes using conventional humus, fertilizing fertilizers, including nitrogen.

To increase the yield

Experienced gardeners, who already know perfectly how to process strawberries in the spring, recommend spraying the bushes with a solution of urea before the flowering process begins. It is prepared by diluting 30 g of substance per 10 liters of water. This processing of strawberries in spring increases its yield by almost a quarter.

If there is a possible danger of frost, it is necessary to take care of the safety of the first crop. With such a threat to save the planting of berries you need smoke: burn grass or dry leaves. And it is necessary to start this work before the start of frosts from the night and continue almost until the appearance of the sun.

Spring top dressing

It is not recommended to remove old leaves from strawberry crops immediately. It's better to wait until the young shoots come out. And their appearance, in turn, is a signal that speaks of the necessity of 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 additional fertilizer.

Before the flowering of many berries, including strawberries, you need to use a different solution: in a ten-liter bowl, dilute a small spoonful of potassium sulfate with two glasses of nitrosfos. To water this composition you need every bush, spending half a liter of additional fertilizer.

Experienced gardener know how to care for strawberries in the spring. In dry weather, once, even before the flowering begins, the bushes are well watered. Then water should be introduced only if necessary. And the beds before the flowering it is better to water the way of sprinkling, so that the leaves develop better. In the future, only the soil will remain moistened.

On those sites whose owners know how to care for strawberries in the 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 to thirty degrees below zero with a snow layer of 20 cm. If the snow cover is small, the plants even freeze and even die in weaker colds. If there is very little snow, then in spring plantations, covered with straw, should be opened, and as soon as possible to avoid the appearance of mice.

Spring spraying

But this work does not end there. Many vegetable growers ask what to do with strawberries in the early spring. Experts believe that after the emergence of fresh shoots and leaves for berries, it is necessary to make a solution of sodium sulfate with the mullein, and in early May - mineral fertilizers. And when the buds are dissolved, the beds should be treated with copper sulfate. Knowing what to spray strawberries in the spring, you can avoid many diseases.

Features of care

Watering of berry plants is desirable to be done once a week, at night or in the early morning. Experts recommend using 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. And although the mulching does not allow the weeds to germinate, nevertheless it is necessary to get rid of them very carefully so that the water can easily reach the root system. If on the site every year careful care is taken for strawberries in early spring, then you can be sure that the berries will be large, and the result, i.e. Harvested crop, will certainly please with its abundance.

Required Tools

For spring processing, strawberries will be needed:

• bucket;
• Garden sprayer;
• Secateurs;
• Sap.

From fertilizers you need to stock up chicken litter, mullein, potassium nitrate, "Nitroammophos" or other mineral top dressing, colloidal sulfur, "Fitosporin" and other drugs to fight diseases and pests.

Types of strawberries that bear fruit in late spring

There are several types of strawberries, classified according to the time of harvest:

• June. Fruits in late spring, gives a lot of berries, but has some drawbacks. The berries appear only once. In addition, in the first year, it is necessary to destroy all the flowers, so that the plant subsequently becomes entrenched.
• Year-round. In fact, it yields crops only in spring and autumn, while in June it needs to cut off the inflorescence, so that in autumn the plant is again covered with berries.

Diseases and pests

Treatment of strawberries in spring from diseases not only protects the plant and crop, but also increases it. The golden rule of gardeners: better prevention of disease than fighting it.

Gray rot in early spring

There is a fairly large number of diseases affecting, including strawberries. Among them, gray rot is very common, which is considered quite a dangerous fungal disease. It appears with prolonged damp and cool weather. Methods to combat gray rot in the spring consist in the destruction of diseased plants in beds, because together with the wind or rain, the disease can spread through the plantation.

In this case, it is necessary to treat the plant with copper chloride at the rate of a tablespoon per liter of water before the beginning of flowering. For every square meter of the affected area you need a thousand milligrams of solution. The second treatment is carried out after the last harvest of strawberry berries - in ten liters of water, dissolve two tablespoons of copper chlorooxide and liquid soap.

Another disease is spotting, which is white, brown and brown. The disease appears in summer and autumn. The leaves of the plant start to burn and gradually fall off. Fight the disease twice: in the early spring, spraying the leaves, and profuse processing after the final harvest.

How to deal with pests in the spring

Many gardeners, before planting the seedlings, must process it. To do this, it is lowered for fifteen minutes in comparatively hot water (a temperature of a maximum of forty-five degrees), so that the pests, if they exist, perish. Planting bushes, you need to make sure that the distance between plants is more than thirty, and between rows - at least seventy centimeters.

In the spring, some summer residents sprinkle their strawberry plantations with a decoction of tomato leaves. Prepares such a decoction from the autumn: a kilogram of harvested green tomatoes are poured with warm water, well insisted. Then boiled, filtered, the mixture adds a laundry soap.

No less effective for pests, and spraying strawberries infusion of dandelion. The fresh leaves of this growing weed are weeded and filled with fifty-degree water. Then a few hours all insisted, shaken, filtered. The resulting solution is sprayed with strawberry leaves.