Strawberry is a fragrant, tasty and vitamin berry. It contains many trace elements that are very important for the body. However, growing strawberries is troublesome. The berry is very moody. In order to get a good harvest, you need to properly care for strawberries in the fall.
August action plan (where to start autumn strawberry care)
All events are divided into several stages, which everyone needs to know about.
1. Old leaves are removed from the bush.
2. Loosening the soil.
3. Feeding is applied.
4. The beds are mulched.
5. Process strawberries from pests.
Work begins after harvest, when the berries are no longer tied. During this period, bushes are treated. For this row-spacing you need to rake up, sprinkling fresh earth. The fact is that during the growth process, the roots of seedlings are exposed, which reduces the fruiting of strawberries. Without additional hilling, new roots will not grow back.
Important! When spudding strawberries, try not to fall asleep.
It is best to start work in early August, then a new foliage will grow before the cold weather, with which the bushes will winter. Loosen the soil very carefully, trying not to damage the fragile roots. You can use a small garden tool.
How to cut old foliage?
In the process of processing the bushes, you need to cut off all the old leaves and mustaches, leaving only those that will be needed for further rooting. If the timing of trimming was delayed, then in September it is too late to do it. It is enough to cut off sick leaves. This is a more time-consuming process than complete pruning of foliage.
All garbage removed must be removed from the site and burned. Autumn pruning is very important for strawberries, so you should not neglect it. It protects the plant from diseases, not allowing them to develop on the bushes.
Important! Pruning of freshly planted bushes is not carried out. On the contrary, they try to keep the leaves until winter.
Protection against pests and diseases of strawberries in the fall
Strawberries are very unstable to diseases, they are often affected by pests, so in the fall it needs additional treatments.
From wintering pests, the garden bed is treated with a solution of kalbofos. After the procedure, the bushes are covered with foil for several hours.
Destroy pathogens will help Bordeaux fluid. It is used in the fall, after harvesting. Re-treatment with copper chloride is allowed.
Proponents of traditional folk methods advise processing strawberry beds with the following solution:
• wood ash - 2 tbsp. l;
• homemade vegetable oil - 3 tbsp. l;
• vinegar - 2 tbsp. l;
• liquid soap - 2 glasses;
• water - 10 liters.
All the ingredients are mixed and the beds are treated. In this case, you need to moisten not only the leaves, but also the ground under them.
How to feed strawberries after pruning
Strawberry dressing is applied throughout the season. But the best time for additional nutrition is the end of fruiting. During this period, strawberries are fed with organic matter. You can use chicken droppings, mullein, diluted compost, ash. The use of mineral complexes is allowed only when there is not enough organic fertilizer.
How to prepare fertilizer
Organics require compliance with the necessary proportions. Each has its own secrets for cooking autumn dressings. However, there are generally accepted standards that are worth observing.
• Bird droppings
It serves for the preparation of liquid concentrate, which is used not only in autumn, but also in spring. However, it is worth remembering that bird droppings are very oily, they can burn plants if the dosage is wrong. You need to properly breed litter 1:10, where 10 is water, and 1 is litter. The resulting mixture is insisted for about two days, after which it is used as intended.
The finished infusion is filtered and watered around the bushes, while trying not to fall on the leaves. It is noticed that after such an autumn departure, strawberries give an excellent harvest in the next season.
• Mullein
In autumn, strawberries are very responsive to feeding liquid mullein. The technology of use is similar to the use of bird droppings. First, a dry mullein is bred with water, insisted, after which the beds are watered.
It is necessary to breed dry mullein similarly. 10 parts of water are added to 1 part of rotted manure. Infuse the mixture for at least a day, after which 1 part of charcoal or ash is added to it. Ready solution is poured strawberry aisles.
• Wood ash
Ash should be applied both in dry and in liquid form. Dry oven ash is sprinkled along the beds, at the rate of 150 g per square meter. For autumn top dressing, you can dilute the ash with water. Pour the resulting solution under the bushes. The consumption of the mixture is 500 ml per bush. Such top dressing replaces mineral fertilizers.
Important! It is necessary to apply top dressing in the second year of growing strawberries. Recently planted bushes do not fertilize.
September - time to prepare strawberries for the winter
In September, strawberries already begin to grow leaves. During this period, the plant prepares for future fruiting, so care should be thorough. If feeding strawberries has not yet been carried out, then it's time to start them. At the same time, watering the bushes is necessary so that the nutrient fluid appears to the root system. Watering strawberries continues until the fall, trying to saturate the plant with moisture.
In addition, in the fall it is necessary to carry out a number of work on preparing strawberries for the winter. First of all, you need to qualitatively mulch the soil and row spacing. Naked land without snow and frost have a detrimental effect on the condition of the bushes. In regions where such a winter is not uncommon, bushes should be especially carefully covered.
A good shelter for the winter is straw. She will not only delay the snow in the garden, but also serve as an organic mulch. If there is no such material, you can use peat with compost. Some gardeners use dry leaves, spruce branches, corn stalks to shelter the beds. The mulch layer must be at least 5 cm thick.
For those who do not want to bother with organic shelter, today there are enough covering materials on sale that are successfully used on strawberries.
To summarize
In fact, caring for strawberries in the fall is not so difficult. It is enough to carry out the cultivation of the beds, sprinkle the earth, cut off the old foliage, feed and cover. The harvest of the next year and the health of plantings directly depend on all the work done.
It is important to remember that in addition to all the work, strawberries need rejuvenation, which is carried out once every four years. If this is not done, then the amount of yield will decrease markedly. The best predecessors for strawberries are spicy herbs, mustard, green manure, onion, garlic and beans. It is highly undesirable to plant a plant after potatoes, tomatoes, eggplant, cucumbers and cabbage, as well as after flowers.
Autumn transplant combined with preparatory work and carried out no later than September. It is important to remember that the plant needs enough time to root.
