In order to become an experienced gardener and reap a fertile harvest, you should understand what care strawberries need in the fall or summer, as well as what you should pay attention to after fruiting. Even experienced gardeners make common mistakes after harvesting.
Loosening the soil is the key to plant health
Even from biology lessons, it was clear that strawberries are a capricious berry. But many gardeners loosen their beds extremely rarely or do it chaotically. However, after picking the berries, you should loosen the beds at least a couple of times a week, and if it rains, even more often, because in the sun an earthen crust forms, which does not provide access to oxygen. The roots of the plant are sensitive to the level of incoming air, so this point is important.
It is worth remembering about nutrition
Experienced gardeners will say that after fruiting the plant should be fed, but the question is which one. Often they select feeding incorrectly (for the wrong type of strawberry) or do not do this procedure at all. But the best feeding is humus, manure (usually horse manure) or copper sulfate.
The most effective remedies are natural; you should not use fertilizer with chlorine (as many do) - the strawberries will quickly wither. But vitriol, in addition to intensive growth, can protect the plant from diseases, for example, rot or powdery mildew.
Protection from the harmful double
Oddly enough, when you buy a plant, you may accidentally get harmful varieties: they are blind man's buff or bammutka. Gardeners make a mistake if they do not remove them, thinking that the lookalikes will produce fruit. Of course, it is not easy to distinguish them, but it is possible and necessary.
First, many of the varieties either do not bloom or produce small, bitter berries that are unsuitable for eating.
Secondly, they have developed vegetative growth, producing many tendrils, which, while filling the bed, crowd out ordinary strawberries. You should get rid of them by trimming and removing the whiskers.
Winter preparation measures
This is one of the important procedures. Gardeners may cover the plant with fabric at the wrong time or do nothing, which is a big mistake. Inexperienced gardeners may not even know what year their strawberries are, and because of this they do not make proper cover. For example, for the second year of life and beyond, you can survive the winter without shelter if there is snow cover.
In order for strawberries to delight you with fruits, you should be careful about caring for them after fruiting and do not forget the rules. Intensive treatment of the plant will give excellent results.
