Strawberry care after harvest. How to care for strawberries after harvest? Most often, strawberries are affected by fungal infections.

Every gardener wants to get tasty, large and juicy strawberries in season. And it's time to take care of the future harvest immediately after harvest.

Care fragrant berry- the process is long, almost all-season, but having felt the careful care of the gardener, the strawberry will not be stingy to reward him with a generous harvest. Consider how to care for the soil after harvesting strawberries.

Pruning old strawberry leaves and whiskers

The plant has transferred its juices to ripening berries, now the task of the gardener is to help the bushes regain strength, give them the opportunity to form new leaves and prepare for a long winter in order to next spring be with a decent harvest.

Important! Five-year plantations of strawberries should be replaced with young plants.

Having collected the last berries at the beginning of summer, it is necessary to carry out weeding the beds with strawberries, because weeding is not carried out during the entire period of fruiting. Then straw, sawdust, needles and other mulch are removed and carefully loosen the soil under bushes and between rows.

The cut material must be removed from the beds. Such a seemingly cruel procedure will give the bush the opportunity to release new leaves and buds by autumn.

Having found a lot of shoots thrown out by the plant, a natural question arises: what to do with strawberry whiskers. Nature provides that the mustache of strawberries is necessary only for reproduction.

Therefore, if it is necessary to propagate strawberries, the strongest tendrils are left for rooting, and the resulting young seedlings are separated in the fall and transplanted into beds.

The rest of the whiskers must be removed, as they will take juices and strength from the mother bush, thereby making it weak and reducing the next year's harvest. Discarded by the plant, not needed by the gardener mustache cut off as low as possible to the ground with a sharp pruner or knife.

Cutting off a shoot is fraught with pulling out and death of the whole plant. Since strawberries shed their whiskers several times during the warm season, the whiskers are trimmed several times as they appear. This will save the bush from unnecessary expenditure of effort.

How to feed strawberries after harvest

The plant needs good nutrition to recover, therefore it is necessary to strawberry fertilizer after harvest. It can be done with this mixture: potassium sulfate, ammonium nitrate and superphosphate in a ratio of 1: 1: 3 dissolve in water and pour the bushes with this solution.

Strawberries will also benefit from sprinkling the base of the bush with vermicompost, rotted compost, or laying pieces of dried manure around the plant. You can feed a strawberry plantation by sprinkling it with crushed wood ash - 2 kg per square meter.

Did you know?After two months of growth, strawberry leaves begin to age.

How to water strawberries after harvest

After the harvest, strawberries do not require intensive watering of the soil. Watering the bushes is necessary only in the dry season. The main thing is to prevent the land from drying out after fruiting.

In the strawberry growing area, it is recommended to carry out soil mulching straw, peat or sawdust - this will keep moisture in the soil. After watering, you need to let the soil around the strawberries dry slightly and thoroughly loosen the soil in the beds.

How to process strawberries to prevent diseases and pests

After the completion of fruiting, the plants should be inspected and made treatment for diseases and pests.

Diseases affecting strawberries:

• powdery mildew- appears gray coating on foliage that rots, twists and falls off. For treatment, the beds are treated with a solution of colloidal sulfur - 50 grams per 5 liters of warm water.
• gray rot- appears gray spots that affect berries is cured with a solution of copper chloride - 40 grams per 10 liters of water.
• black rot- an analogue of gray, only spots on the berries are black, the treatment methods are the same.
• spotting- damage to the leaves with brown-red spots, get rid of it with a solution of copper chloride - 50 grams per 10 liters of water.

Important! Foliage of a reddish hue is cut and burned in preparation for wintering - this will protect the plantings from pests

Areas for growing berries need constant struggle and protection from strawberry pests.

Most frequent pests:

• strawberry weevil- an insect that eats leaves and buds, get rid of it by spraying the bushes with karbofos - 75 g per 10 liters of water.
• strawberry mite– small insect, whose presence is given out by yellowed deformed foliage. Get rid of it in the same way as the weevil.
• spider mite- forms a web on the foliage, the fight against it consists in treating the plant with a phytoverm solution, as well as cutting and burning all the leaves after fruiting is completed.

Strawberries, or garden strawberries, are significantly ahead of other plants in terms of ripening, opening the fruit season. In a few spring months, the plant manages to grow young leaves, bloom and produce fragrant sweet berries, drawing strength from last year's reserves. Therefore, the processing of strawberries after harvest is the basis for future fruiting.

Strawberry bushes after harvesting must be processed for the next season.

Eat sweet berries early varieties you can already at the end of May, and June gives you not only enough to eat strawberries, but also stock up for the winter. During the ripening of strawberries, processing and care of plants is minimal, but from July to September it is necessary to create the basis for future fruiting through various agrotechnical measures:

• Watering;
• top dressing;
• Treatments for diseases and pests;
• Mustache rooting and transplantation of daughter plants.

Pruning, disease and pest control

During the period of flowering and ripening of berries, it is not safe to process plants, because the resulting crop will be unsuitable for food and processing, so all pesticides are deposited until the harvest is complete. Preferably varieties with various terms fruiting planted on different beds so that immediately after harvesting the bushes can be processed without waiting for the maturation of late varieties.

To process strawberries after fruiting with minimal cost labor and time, it is recommended to completely remove the old leaves, on which pests and pathogens accumulate. The only exception is remontant varieties, in which it is recommended to remove only damaged and weak leaves. If the aisles and beds were covered with mulch, it is better to remove it and burn it along with old leaves, especially if pest damage is noticed.

For the prevention of fungal diseases, the bushes and soil surface can be treated with Nitrafen or Bordeaux mixture. If the bushes are affected by a strawberry mite, or to prevent its occurrence, it is possible to treat with Aktellik, Fitoverm, Karbofos, Fufanon or other broad-spectrum acaricides and insecticides.

What to do with the resulting ones depends on the needs for planting material. Most it is recommended to remove the mustache so that the plant does not waste energy on growing daughter outlets. Worth leaving only a small amount of young rosettes on 1-3 year old bushes to replace dead or old plants.

Bordeaux mixture is used as a prevention of fungal plant diseases.

Watering and fertilizing

Abundant fruiting takes away from the plant a huge amount of nutrients that must be applied with top dressing so that the bushes can lay flower buds and prepare for wintering. Organic and mineral fertilizers are used as top dressing, but before applying them, it is recommended to thoroughly clean the aisles from weeds and loosen the ground.

the best organic fertilizer consider horse manure. It's enough just to spread the pieces horse manure in the aisles and nutrients along with the rains will gradually pass into the ground. You can also use cow dung, humus, solution chicken manure or compost.

When choosing a mineral fertilizer for strawberries, it is better to give preference to complex preparations without chlorine. Ammophoska has proven itself well, which contains almost all the necessary substances (phosphorus, potassium, nitrogen, magnesium, sulfur, calcium). Mineral fertilizers are scattered around the bushes at the rate of 20 g per 1 m 2, and then they are embedded in the soil with a rake and watered abundantly.

After fertilizing, watering and loosening, it is advisable to mulch the soil in order to more easily maintain a constant level of moisture. During the period of increasing leaf mass, laying future flower stalks and preparing for winter, it is very important to maintain constant soil moisture and not allow plantings to dry out.

It is important to remember that it is the period after picking the berries that is the most important for laying flower stalks. When carrying out the recommended agrotechnical measures, strawberries will definitely please the next year bountiful harvest sweet fragrant berries.

On our plots, strawberries are as easy to meet as cucumbers or tomatoes. If among vegetables they are recognized leaders, then strawberries are a recognized leader among berry crops. It is almost impossible to imagine homesteading without it. It gives amazingly tasty fruits and provides them for more than one season. However, it must be properly cared for and timely pruning after harvesting is one of the important aspects of this care.

Summer and autumn pruning - what is needed?

Often people are perplexed when they hear about pruning strawberry bushes in the summer, immediately after flowering. They believe that in this way the entire strength of the bush and its effectiveness is nullified. However, in reality, everything is completely different.

Cropped bushes have time to build up fresh green mass by autumn and reserve strength for the winter. This is with regard to the complete pruning of bushes, which has to be done if they are affected by various fungal diseases. In the normal case, it is enough to rid the bush of the entire mass of whiskers growing to the sides, leaving only a few for reproduction. Unless of course it is included in your plans. That's the whole point of summer pruning.

Only non-repairable strawberry varieties are pruned in summer, remontant varieties require completely different care.

Autumn, on the other hand, consists in removing damaged and affected leaves, which have become a target for various fungal spores and pests. Damaged parts are carried far to the side and buried or burned. The bushes themselves, after pruning, are treated with insecticides in combination with a Bordeaux mixture.

No experiments, only proven techniques (video)

Considering that any pruning for a living plant is shock therapy there is no room for experimentation. You should not try in practice a variety of new ways of trimming bushes, when there are already proven and approved options how to do it.

There is a category of people who are convinced that strawberries do not need any pruning. They explain this by the fact that leaves are the main source of photosynthesis in a plant, and without them it will lose its strength and will not be able to survive the winter. In addition, this method also does not work against pests - they will simply move from the leaves to the ground and will wait for their chance next season.

If strawberry leaves are not cut in time, with a high degree of probability similar spots may appear on them, signaling a disease.

This can be argued, because leaving the leaves in place after harvesting, you can often observe their reddening, browning and other color metamorphoses, which are not at all pleasant for the plant. Pests and fungal spores are very fond of settling on old leaves, and from there spread to young ones, gradually destroying entire bushes. In addition, no one has canceled the soil treatment with fungicides and pesticides, so they are unlikely to be so comfortable in the ground waiting for new food.

Strawberry whiskers are recommended to be cut in the summer - this way you give the plant the opportunity to direct all its forces into the leaves and prepare for cold times. Most mustaches will simply have to be thrown out, but the strongest and most reliable ones can be used to propagate strawberries.

With regard to land cultivation - great combination water with potassium permanganate and ash can become different breeds trees. This technique is used in the case of transplanting a diseased bush or when a healthy bush is planted in a place where diseased plants grew. The same must be done after the usual pruning of bushes.

The best time

Another point of contention is when to prune strawberries. Often people agree that this time comes somewhere around July 20th. In fact, there is no special specificity here and should not be. Only one fact is important - by winter, the bush should have time to form well, grow green. And this despite the fact that he had all the leaves cut out. It is often enough to simply cut off old leaves, as well as those that have a weak and diseased appearance.

Another period is associated with the beginning or middle of August, when the fruiting period completely ends. At this time, choose a quiet day without bright sun, and morning or evening.

Only the sharpest tool is selected for trimming, whether it be scissors, pruners or something else. So you can carefully cut the leaves without causing damage to the bush. By the way, only leaf blades without petioles are cut, so that ten centimeters of the bush remain sticking out above the ground. Thanks to this approach, strawberry growth points are preserved, and next year you can safely expect healthy flowering, and then fruiting strawberry bushes.

For pruning, it is best to choose secateurs or scissors. The main condition is that they must be well sharpened

Processing and top dressing after pruning

The earth after pruning is necessarily loosened, and moisture is introduced on an ongoing basis. Since the peak of the strawberry vegetation (namely, the growth of mustaches and leaves) falls on spring time- that's when you should especially carefully look after her. At good care bushes will quickly grow green mass and begin to bloom.

If a weevil or other pests were seen on the plants, use the Intavir preparation, which is treated twice.

To support the plants after pruning and speed up the laying of flower buds, it is enough to feed the bushes universal fertilizers which can be found at any garden store. They are diluted in water at the rate of 10 ml per 10 liters of water. nitrogen compounds along with ammonium nitrate will also be a good help to plants.

Photo gallery of strawberry care products

"Intavir" destroys a significant number of pest species Universal and useful potassium permanganate Charcoal for powdering bushes and earth
wood ash for powdering bushes and earth

Triple top dressing

Experienced gardeners say that it is necessary to carry out three feedings after harvesting. The first entry is made immediately after trimming and it consists in the introduction of liquid nitrogen fertilizers in in large numbers. In the process of feeding, under each bush, a kurnik is brought in in the amount of one matchbox in dry equivalent. Then the soil is immediately loosened to a depth of ten centimeters. The second run consists of a mixture of organics with phosphorus and potassium and is made two weeks after the first. The third is based on the introduction of a solution of mullein or compost infusion in mid-September.

A timely and correctly cut strawberry bush will have time to grow a new green mass before winter and will pleasantly surprise you with a good harvest next season.

In this way, competent pruning and care of strawberry bushes is carried out, allowing them to be protected from diseases and pests, and at the same time to prepare well for the winter season. These activities are by no means superfluous, as every gardener who has grown strawberries at least once on his site can be sure of.

Yes, time in the country is flying like an arrow. Just yesterday they were hunting for the first ripe strawberries, but now ... But does this mean that the strawberry season is over? Yes, nothing like that, because now is the time to prepare for the next year. In general, we read and draw conclusions.

I have noticed more than once (using the example of my many acquaintances) that summer residents, having collected the last berries, relax: they say, we did a good job with strawberries - now it’s time for us to do other things, and the plants to relax. And in the best case, they will then make compost on the beds and it all ends there.

But strawberries, having given us a harvest, require almost special sanatorium care, she is not only tired (like us), but also has accumulated all sorts of ailments (or rather, their carriers), so far invisible to our eyes, which next year can make themselves felt in full growth.

And what, for example, do we do when we are at a resort?

Yes, first of all, we get rid of everything unnecessary for our health. So strawberries need to be helped to shed harmful ballast - for her it is foliage and mustaches.

Therefore, after I remove the last berry, right there on strawberry patch cut off all vegetation.

And this, by the way, is a very important moment for strawberries: if you cut it too close to the ground, you can easily damage the growth bowls, from which new foliage will then develop.

I think the most optimal height cut - about 10 cm from the soil. I do this with a pruner with large long blades, which is designed to level hedges - I clicked once, there were no pair of bushes.

Now about top dressing.

Compost, of course, is always in place, but this is not enough for tired plants. It is as if you were fed only vitamins in a sanatorium.

I treat my plantings with a quick-acting organic fertilizer - a solution of chicken manure.

I dilute it with water in an ordinary plastic bucket in a ratio of 1:10, mix it thoroughly, pour it into an iron watering can without a strainer and immediately put it into action (the fresher it is, the more useful it is for plants). Solution consumption - 1 bucket per 10 strawberry bushes.

Before this top dressing, I water the plantings abundantly] under the root, and after it, I wash the leaves from the watering can to remove splashes of solution that accidentally fall on it, which can cause burns. Of course, this is a dreary business, but in matters of prevention I am meticulous: it is better to spend extra time, but then sleep peacefully.

Before the onset of real cold weather, I mulch strawberries with a layer of rotted sawdust about 5-7 cm thick (and in summer I do it with mowed grass) and cover the beds with non-woven covering material. Perhaps I'm over-insurance again, but who can guarantee that in winter there will be a fairly thick snow cover with good frosts?

And so I am again calm that my strawberries will comfortably winter.

Strawberries: true and false

It's all about the mouth

Another thing is surprising - that among the authors of "strawberry" letters there are those who, contrary to all the rules, assure that this berry does not need special care. Have these summer residents managed to change the laws of nature? Something I strongly doubt. Most likely, they are just not saying anything.

Take, for example, the article by Raisa Alekseevna Uporova “6 advantages of berry trenches”. It is read in one breath, just like a fairy tale: to get bountiful harvest, you just need to dig up a bed, level the ground, mix it with humus, plant bushes in one row, lightly water it - and prepare a large container under large berries. Or maybe this is a fairy tale? And especially it probably excites the imagination of novice gardeners. Well, those who are used to working on the land for real know very well how much needs to be done in order to grow a lot of strawberries. After all, by the way, respected Raisa Alekseevna did not say anything about what needs to be done in early spring for the second, third, fourth and fifth years. But there is something to work on!

I personally, at the very beginning of the season, first of all, right in the snow, sprinkle the beds with ashes and cover with black nonwoven fabric so that the earth quickly thawed and soaked with water.

Then I cut off the old dried leaves, mustaches, peduncles on the bushes and again sprinkle with ashes - this time to feed the plants with microelements. Then I put the arcs, pull on them all the same covering material. When it gets really warm, I'll move on to other top dressings. Isn't there enough work? And it’s completely incomprehensible to me how berries can be grown without all this. Am I wrong?

One more moment. Dear Raisa Alekseevna and many authors (here the matter concerns much more summer residents-"strawberries"), enthusiastically describing their agricultural practices, do not say anything about what kind of antennae they plant - male or female. I bet they just don't know it. And this is not a reproach on my part, since at first I, too, was not aware of such tricks. But again, the question is: is it then possible to argue that growing strawberries is not too complicated? And you only need to plant a female mustache! If you do this indiscriminately, the next year you can be left without a harvest. But this is not enough: one must also be able to correctly “extract” these mustaches. And they should be taken only from those bushes on which the largest berries grow.

I mark these with pegs and cut off from them only the whiskers closest to them, and only one thing from each bush. The rest I immediately remove so that they do not take strength and nutrition from the mother plants.

Down with the barber!

And now I would like to focus on pruning the leaves after harvesting. Dacha has been debating this issue for a long time, but the readers seem to have come to nothing definite. I think there can be no two opinions - do not cut! What is there to argue about? All gardeners must firmly remember the rule that follows from the laws of nature. Take a closer look at the plants and forget for a while about the advice of your neighbors, no matter how good they tempt you. It’s better to remember at the same time what we were taught at school in botany lessons. Well, do you see what I'm getting at?

And to the fact that after harvesting, in no case should all leaves be removed from fruit-bearing plants. You can cut off only yellowed and lying on the ground so that they are not affected by diseases, but in no case should you touch the main “hairstyle”.

After all, since the foliage nourishes the roots, then, removing it in the fall, we completely destroy the first tier of roots, which, in fact, are responsible for the harvest.

New foliage, of course, will quickly grow back. What do you want? The roots also want to live, so they work. But let this fact not inspire optimism in fans of pruning foliage, since the lower tier of roots comes into play here, which give overall yields 30% lower, and in their growth, as it were, lift the plants.

That is why the next year, after pruning the foliage, hummocks with bushes “flaunt” on the beds. And if you dig one such bush for interest, you can see that its tops are young, and the roots are black and old. You cut off all the foliage - but tell me, please, how then to carry out foliar top dressing?

Those gardeners who practice leaf pruning thoughtlessly disturb the natural balance of plants. Remember, my dears, that the strawberry itself, without your intervention, will shed all its foliage in the spring.

You carefully observe how its color changes in autumn - just like the trees in the forest, it gradually becomes dark brown, and if you run your hand over it, you can feel as if copper twigs are inserted into it. This shows that she is preparing for the cold, pumping out all the juices to the roots. And this, in turn, indicates that our bushes and their roots can easily withstand frosts down to -18 °. After all, their main insulation is their own foliage! And if strawberries are also covered with a layer of humus and sawdust, then even -40 ° will be nothing to her.

In addition, in the fall comes the future harvest on next year, and for this it is necessary to make foliar feeding of plantings with microelements and urea. And how will you do it if there is no foliage?

Here's another reason for the decline in yield next season. So, dear gardeners, take care of every green leaf! Your success depends entirely on them: healthy foliage is an indicator of a strong root system. And therefore, we must not forget here about the inadmissibility of thickening strawberry plantings - it grows better and bears fruit when the plants are well blown by the winds. This can be achieved only if the gaps between the bushes are made by 30-40 cm. And then it will not be necessary to thin out the plantings (as, for example, the respected Raisa Alekseevna does) with a flat cutter. In general, consider all this, dear summer residents, and you will definitely grow good harvest, which you will begin to collect not in cups, but in buckets.

A good strawberry harvest is laid in July - September of the previous year. Strawberry care in July and August is the basis of next year's harvest.

At this time, the second wave of leaf growth begins, as well as the growth of new horns and the laying of new flower buds. Nutrients are deposited in the horns, which plants garden strawberries will spend next year on the formation of berries. But the first thing to do is to carefully cut off all the old leaves, trying not to damage the hearts and young leaves.

Do not be late with this procedure, because with the growth of young foliage, you will need more time and diligence. In addition, diseases and pests that have appeared over the season on old leaves will have time to move on to new ones.

If you notice that the growing young strawberry leaves are wrinkled, deformed, this means that the plants are infected with strawberry mites. Treat strawberries with any tick preparation (acaricide). A good result is obtained by treatment with Actellik, Kleshchevit (aka Fitoverm), Titovit Jet or a solution of colloidal sulfur.

Then carefully loosen the soil in the aisles to a depth of 10 cm. It is impossible to loosen deep directly near the bushes so as not to damage root system. In strawberries, it is located superficially.

Next, you need to do top dressing. To do this, add to the soil a complete mineral fertilizer with micronutrients. Calculation: 20-30 grams per 1 square meter. It is best suited for this special fertilizer for strawberries, containing all necessary elements in a balanced way. Ammophoska is not bad for this purpose: in addition to the main nutrients (nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium), it contains calcium, magnesium and sulfur. Chlorine-containing fertilizers should be avoided, because strawberries do not tolerate chlorine. Highly good result gives the introduction of humus, which not only fertilizes the soil, but also significantly improves its structure.

So that after watering a crust does not form on the surface of the soil, mulch the bed with peat.

After making dry top dressing, water the strawberries. Until the end of the season, keep the soil moist by watering sparingly but plentifully. After abundant watering, loosen the soil, removing weeds. Cut out the newly growing mustache - fruiting next year will be much weaker if the bush expends energy on the formation of daughter rosettes, and not flower buds. Timely removal of the mustache stimulates the laying of new flower buds. Powerfully overgrown young leaves cover the strawberry bush in winter and contribute to a more successful overwintering.