If you are a happy owner of a suburban area and have at your disposal a couple of beds with berries, then you probably thought about how to care for strawberries in the fall. It's no secret that garden strawberries are a rather capricious culture. It requires timely care: pruning old leaves, watering, fertilizing, loosening, transplanting and removing numerous mustaches.
In order to get a consistently high yield of this delicious berry every year, you need to know how to care for strawberries in autumn, summer and spring. But autumn care is the most responsible. The next harvest will depend on how you prepare the berries for wintering. The main stages are the timely pruning of old foliage, removing weeds from the garden, replanting new plants and sheltering bushes for the winter.
Since the laying of berry buds occurs in the summer, top dressing of strawberries in the fall is not necessary. However, you need to maintain a fertile soil layer. Therefore, it will be useful to introduce humus between plants, while it is required to be embedded in the soil by 2 cm. This measure will avoid gray rot. Fresh manure, as well as undecomposed compost, is not suitable.
Pruning strawberries in autumn should be done in several stages. First, old dried leaves and stalks are cut off immediately after harvest. This way you can avoid many diseases and the reproduction of pests that laid their eggs on the leaves in the height of summer. Before you start covering berry rosettes for the winter, you should once again walk the pruner around the garden. Proper pruning is when a bunch of young and medium leaves remains, while all overgrown foliage and unwanted whiskers are cut off.
Having learned how to care for strawberries in the fall, you should also take care of the cleanliness of the soil. If you leave the weeds in the winter, then most of them will begin to grow rapidly at the very beginning of spring. In addition, garden pests also like to settle and winter on weeds. This stage is one of the most laborious. Indeed, in a garden with two- and three-year-old plants, it is very difficult to maintain the purity of the soil due to numerous mustaches and overgrown rosettes.
In order for the plants to overwinter safely, they are covered before the snow falls. The best covering material is natural. Pure straw, spruce spruce branches are ideal for sheltering. Coniferous branches will not only close the bushes from the piercing cold wind, but also scare away rodents who decide to feast on hungrywinter times roots and leaves. Traditional covering materials such as lutrasil and spunbond are a good alternative. Having carried out such preparatory work, you can safely count on the fact that strawberries will safely winter and gain strength for further growth.
Experienced gardeners who know how to care for strawberries in the fall recommend taking care of updating the beds during this period. Dig out old diseased bushes, and plant new sockets in their place, with an already well-formed root system. A rooted mustache must have from three leaves, at least 5 roots with a length of 6 cm or more. Organic matter or mineral fertilizers must be applied under seedlings.
Take good care, harvest a generous harvest and enjoy a delicious, he althy and fragrant berry!
