A very important stage of cultivation, which cannot be ignored in any way, is feeding strawberries in the spring. Properly fertilizing the berry, you can get a generous harvest and a lot of planting material.
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How to feed strawberries immediately after winter
Before you start feeding, you need to clean the strawberry plantation from last year's garbage. As soon as the snow melts, a layer of old mulch, dried leaves, mustache and twigs are removed.
Feeding garden strawberries after the snow melts, you can make cow dung. To do this, 1 liter of a well-fermented mullein is bred in a bucket of water. 500 ml of solution is poured under the bush.
After applying the nutrient solution, each bush must be mulched with a thin layer of ash.
Ash is the best protection against insect pests and excellent prevention of various diseases.
After spilling the ash, the entire strawberry bed is mulched with rotted needles.
In spring before flowering and during flowering
It is imperative to feed flowering strawberries and it is important to add the necessary fertilizers before flowering, so that the berries become larger and more sweet.
Care and feeding iodine
Iodine is a common folk remedy with which you can feed the berry in early spring. By adding just a few drops of this cheap pharmacy drug to water for irrigation, you can prevent the appearance of various rot of strawberries, because this drug is an excellent disinfectant.
Often iodine is used to spray leaves, but very carefully so as not to burn the plants.It is best to feed the bushes under the root.
- First, the beds are abundantly shed with water.
- Then literally 15 drops of iodine are diluted in 10 - 12 l of plain water and 300 ml of each outlet are added.
- It is very useful for strawberries to add 1 tsp to iodine solution. boric acid.
This fertilizer can be further improved by adding 50 g of brown laundry soap to the solution.
Strawberry Chicken Feeding
Various organic top dressings are very useful before and even during flowering, which, when used correctly, are 100% safe for plants and humans. One of such folk remedies is chicken droppings.
It is strictly forbidden to use fresh litter.
The fact is that in its composition, in addition to a huge amount of nutrients, there is also harmful uric acid, which can very quickly kill bushes. Also, chicken manure is a concentrate in which there is a lot of nitrogen, phosphorus and other trace elements. Making litter in its pure form will necessarily lead to an excess of nutrition and the inevitable death of the berry.
To lower the concentration of uric acid, the litter is dried on the street and stored for such a long period. Sometimes the litter is mixed. Gradually, all the excess will evaporate from the fertilizer, and it will become suitable for use. Usually, chicken droppings are kept in the air all winter, and in the spring they begin to fertilize the garden with it.
Many experienced gardeners know that it is best to make an infusion of chicken manure, and then add garden plants to it. You can see literally a few days after making the infusion that the plants become stronger, grow green mass faster and bloom more abundantly.
Preparation of infusion on chicken manure will not take much time.
- First, the litter, which has been re-migrated during the winter, is poured with water. It is enough to take a bucket of water for 1 liter of fertilizer.
- The bucket is left open and set in the air.
- The solution should be mixed every day. The color of the infusion should be very light.
- The fermented solution is diluted with additional pure water at a rate of 1:20 and each bush is poured into 500 ml.
It is advisable to shed well the day before the dressing of the bed.
Spring care with boric acid
Feeding strawberries with boric acid is very common in early spring.
Boron significantly improves the quality of the crop - the berries become larger, fleshy, the leaves of the bushes do not dry and do not deteriorate.
Boric acid must not be added to the soil in its pure form. It is imperative to prepare a nutrient solution. Pour strawberries with this fertilizer only at the root. It is also possible to spray bushes with nutrient solutions, but in this case they should be very weak.
Spraying with boric acid is carried out only before flowering. If the strawberry plantation is treated with boric acid during flowering, it can harm the bees.
For feeding, prepare such a solution:
- Dissolve 2 g of acid in 10 liters of lukewarm water.
- Add 1 g of manganese to the nutrient solution.
- Stir the mixture.
On average, one bucket of such fertilizer is enough to pour about 30 bushes.
There is another recipe for making fertilizer for strawberries based on boric acid:
- Dissolve 2 g of boric acid in 10 l of water.
- Add 20 g of urea and 3 g of manganese.
- At the end, add 100 g of ash to the solution and mix well.
This nutrient composition needs to be added to the bushes before flowering. The recipe is also suitable for fertilizing strawberries during the ripening of berries. For a good harvest, many gardeners feed berries and ammonia, adding a few drops of the drug in the prepared nutrient solution.
We feed with yeast
Mineral fertilizing before and during the flowering of the berry can be successfully replaced with fertilizers prepared from baker's yeast.
Feeding with yeast is a safe and effective method to get a generous harvest of berries.
It is very simple to prepare a nutrient solution for fertilizers: dissolve 1 kg of yeast in 5 l of warm water.After a couple of days, dilute 500 ml of yeast solution in a bucket of water and pour 500 ml of each bush.
You can replace baker's yeast with powder yeast. Dilute a bag of dry yeast in 5 l of warm water and leave for 24 hours. In a solution for fermentation, add 2 tbsp. l Sahara. This solution does not need to be diluted, it is immediately used to fertilize the berry.
Fertilize strawberries with urea
This composition is poured over the berries or sprayed. They hold such events before flowering or already during. Fertilizer stimulates the growth of bushes, increases immunity to diseases and parasites.
It follows 1 tbsp. l Dissolve granules in 10 l of water. The consumption rate is 500 ml under one outlet. It should be noted that urea increases the acidity of the soil, therefore, if the soil is already acidic, ground limestone is added to the nutrient solution at the rate of 0.8: 1.
Complex fertilizer for strawberries in the spring
Fertilizing an already flowering berry can also be done with special complex mixtures. Ready-made formulations are also used in May before flowering.
Complex fertilizers can be of two types - highly mobile and with a low mobile composition.
- Highly mobile compounds contain a lot of nitrogen, which is necessary for the rapid growth and proper development of bushes.
- In low mobility mixtures, there is a lot of copper, boron and iron, which do not give such a quick result, as they are slowly absorbed by plants.
If the leaves of the strawberry become pale, it means that it lacks nitrogen. In this case, fertilizers with a high content of this element should be selected. One of the common fertilizers for berry growers is urea.
Bushes during the formation of flower buds need a lot of potassium. The taste of fruits depends on his presence. You can fertilize strawberries with potassium sulfate, kalimagnesia.
Mineral fertilizing, which contains a lot of sulfur, is necessary to increase plant immunity and protect against pests. One of the most popular fertilizers is superphosphate. Also, many use ammofoska.
Foliar top dressing
Bushes are sprayed only in the early morning or evening, to avoid leaf burns. As nutrient solutions, you can use yeast infusion or iodine.
Foliar top dressing with nitrate is popular. It is necessary to dissolve 1 tbsp in a bucket of water. l saltpeter and spray plants.
Often gardeners feed nettles to the berry. As part of this plant, there are a lot of trace elements that are well absorbed by strawberries.
To prepare a nutrient solution should:
- In a barrel of water, pour 1 bucket of chopped nettle and insist for a week.
- After the allotted time, 500 ml of top dressing is diluted in a bucket of water and sprayed with bushes.
This infusion is also used for pouring outlets. In this case, 500 ml of infusion is diluted with 10 liters of plain water and each bush is poured into 300 - 500 ml.
Growing strawberries in your home garden is a very rewarding job. For attention and care, the gardener receives a generous harvest of juicy and fragrant berries.
