Spring is the time when gardeners lay the foundation for the future harvest by growing seedlings. Many berries and other fruit plants reproduce in this way. But it is worth talking about strawberries separately. This berry is popular with garden owners due to its aroma and great taste. In addition, it contains many vitamins and nutrients. It is propagated, as a rule, from a mustache or by dividing a bush, but there are other ways. For example, strawberry seedlings can grow from plant seeds.
To get good seedlings, just go to any gardening store where you can buy strawberry seeds at affordable prices. Moreover, a rich assortment allows you to choose exactly the variety that you need. On sale there are large and small-fruited plants, remontant, which can bear fruit all summer. The easiest way to breed seedlings of small-fruited strawberries, which belongs to remontant varieties. It has a higher germination rate than a variety that produces large fruits.
When planting seeds for seedlings in boxes with earth, it must be covered with a film and make sure that the soil is moist. You can grow seeds for seedlings in berry blocks, at the basewhich 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 high humidity, the ground must be treated with an antifungal drug. The film can be removed only after the appearance of leaves on the seedlings, and this must be done gradually, opening the plants for an hour or two. Plants should be watered with care to avoid waterlogging the earthy coma and blackleg berry disease.
Like many other plants, strawberry seedlings require repeated picking. When 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 approach individually. Some consider January to be the appropriate month, others plant strawberry seeds in March. Plants that were planted in winter, already fully developed bushes fall into the open ground. But in this case, strawberry seedlings require a constant supply of light. For this purpose, plants can be provided with artificial lighting and, if necessary, heating.
Plants before planting in the ground (in May-June) must be hardened, for which they are recommended to be taken out into the open air first during the day, and thenfor the night. Seedlings can be put on a balcony or loggia. At the same time, night temperatures must be monitored to avoid frost. It is better to choose cool, cloudy weather for transplanting plants into the ground.
Gardeners have developed their own varietal preferences - varieties Gigantella, Festival Chamomile, Lord, Moscow Yubileinaya (Mashenka). Early varieties of strawberries are very popular, which allow you to enjoy a delicious, fragrant berry in the middle of summer. These include varieties Chisinau early, Scarlet Dawn with large fruits from twenty grams, Alpha, Beauty Zagorya and others. The earliest varieties are best grown indoors, in specially constructed greenhouses, where the berries ripen quickly enough.
