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Always comes the time when you need to start picking strawberries. As far as the strawberry would not be generous, harvesting means the end of fruitfulness and a favorite delicacy will cease to please the eye in the beds. But in order for the subsequent harvest to be no less generous, the strawberries must be given special care after harvesting.
Collecting strawberries
Summer is coming and summer residents who grow strawberries on the plot should try to carefully harvest, prepare the bushes for the winter rest. Picking strawberries is a painstaking, but very profitable and enjoyable experience. The bushes generously covered with berries are ready to give the gardener a lot of pleasure while eating the sweet berries. Do not forget about the healthy properties of the culture. It should be eaten with diseases of the gastrointestinal tract, vitamin deficiency, diseases of the genitourinary system, the nervous system, etc.
Berries are collected in small boxes so that the fruits do not crush each other. Strawberries are stored in a cool dry place.
If you are collecting for sale, then you should do it just a few hours before implementation so that the culture does not lose its aesthetic presentation. The slightly over-ripe strawberries immediately start up juice, this sort is suitable for jam, compotes, fruit drinks.
Summer Man should thank the favorite berry for the pleasure. With the right approach, the next season the basket of the number of berries will pop at the seams, and the taste will become even more subtle and refined. So what does strawberries expect from us after harvesting? It is necessary to take responsible steps , in which you should be sensitive and follow a number of necessary rules to preserve the plant.
Strawberry care year-round
The crop yield is short, only 2, sometimes 3 months. Of course, we are not talking about strawberries grown by a special technology in an equipped greenhouse. After the end of winter and the disappearance of snow, vulnerable strawberry roots do not have time to warm up, get a set of trace elements and minerals from the earth, which would give strength for greater yields. Often the culture begins to hurt. Whimsical and ripe strawberries.
Caring for strawberries should comply with the rules and recommendations of experienced gardeners. Like any other plant, strawberry bushes need feeding, careful care, if you want - heating. But measures should be taken to preserve and strengthen the plant much earlier, immediately after harvesting strawberries, in July, August, and September. It is during these months that a guarantee is laid for getting good and large fruits.
Some will ask - why in these months. During this period, a new wave of leaves appears on the strawberry bushes, antennae and flower buds appear. All the “strength”, that is, minerals and trace elements from the ground begin to accumulate in the antennae, so that in the next season they will have flowers, then fruits. Thus, the main strawberry bush loses the ability to get a full-fledged "food", the bush weakens and brings a poor, shallow harvest.
How to cut off the old leaves
After harvesting strawberries, you should clean the area from old grass, weeds.
The leaves are trimmed gently so as not to hurt the young leaves and the core of the shrub.
At the same time, if there are different varieties on the beds nearby, early, late, first of all early ones should be processed. Shrubs are processed after the full period of fruiting. Also, do not miss the right moment, otherwise there will be a lot of shoots and you will need more diligence to work. Gardeners recommend harvesting dried strawberry leaves, since they may contain pockets of fungal diseases that will pass on to young leaves. If shriveled foci appeared on young leaves, it means that the culture is sick with strawberry mite, which is treated with a special drug acaricide, mite, actellic, colloidal sulfur solution.
Working with the soil after picking strawberries
After harvesting ripe berries, loosen the ground at a distance of 10 centimeters from the bush. Closer can not, otherwise it can damage the root system of culture. During this period, strawberries begin to absorb the bark, which is necessary for a generous harvest of strawberries in the next season. Up to 30 grams of minerals is needed per 1 square meter. Professionals use ammofosku, which balanced all the necessary nutrients for the culture. This preparation perfectly fertilizes the soil and eliminates various diseases.
Avoid cracking after watering, for this it is best to sprinkle the soil with peat. After feeding, carefully water the bushes and keep the soil wet at the end of the season.
In this case, frequent watering is not recommended, it is better to irrigate rarely, but plentifully, then loosen the ground, remove dry grass, weeds. On the bushes every now and then will appear a mustache, they need to continue to cut.
Before the onset of winter, cover the crop well and protect it from strong frosts. Many use hay, and in the winter sprinkle with wood ash. It has many trace elements. Ash performs two functions at once: it protects from severe frosts and nourishes the soil with nutrients. With the arrival of spring, you need to plow through the ground around the bushes, fertilize strawberries with fertilizers, and water on plenty of hot days. If you take the harvest of strawberries seriously and scrupulously, you will become the owner of a large number of fragrant ripe berries.
