How to prepare the soil for planting strawberries

How to prepare the soil for planting strawberries? Very carefully. After all, it is planned to get the crop for at least 4 consecutive years from one garden. Still a perennial plant. Therefore, all the preparatory stages are very important. Consider each in detail.

Digging

Some summer residents neglect the autumn digging of beds. And only in the spring a little loosening the earth with a plane cutter. Then in August they plant poor strawberry rosettes in stone soil and naively wait for berries. Let them wait. They just don’t think that the root system of strawberries reaches as much as 30 cm in length! It is at such a depth that the soil should be loose, breathable. But it is difficult to achieve such a care with a plane cutter.

By the way, winter digging without leveling the top layer helps frosts get to most pupae and pest larvae. It will be possible to bury the bed in the spring.

Tip. If health does not help to wave a shovel, then use garden pitchforks. It is not so much important to turn the layers of the earth, but to loosen them.

But autumn digging will be absolutely useless if the soil itself is heavy. After the first rain, such soil will turn into a monolith. Strawberries just choke. Therefore, if you have clay soils, then be sure to add directly to the bed:

• sand
• peat
• rotten sawdust
• semi-rotten turf
• loose compost

These materials improve the structure of the soil, increase its fertility. And further. Do not forget about the level of groundwater and melt water. Choose a place higher for planting strawberries. Bushes like to drink in the summer, but they absolutely cannot stand the stagnation of moisture in other seasons. The root system responds to flooding almost instantly. Already on the second day after the bay, a good third of the small feeding roots begins to rot.

If for some reason you have to grow strawberries in an unfavorable area, then try to arrange a drainage system of expanded clay and crushed stone at the bottom of the bed. Or make tall boxes, and already plant bushes in them.

Weeding

It is only natural that the soil for planting strawberries should be clean of weeds. Therefore, it is not enough to cut them with a hoe or a plane cutter. Will have to tinker with the order, choosing the roots of perennials. Otherwise, all 4 years you will have to fight for a clean landing, and long and hard.

But, even if you choose each root with your own pens, there will probably still be a large number of annual seeds in the soil. What to do? Firstly, they are not as scary as wheat grass, thistle, spurge, or bindweed. Secondly, experienced summer residents advise:

1. As soon as the snow melts, immediately dig out the bed.
2. Cover it with black non-woven material, a dark film or even roofing material for a week.
3. Then remove the shelter.
4. Cut emerged seedlings with a manual cultivator or plane cutter.

This procedure is suitable for spring planting of strawberries. For autumn, shelter will not have to be removed until August. Or constantly cut young seedlings of weed annuals. Some summer residents use herbicides to keep the land clean until strawberries are planted. Well, this is also an option, if you are not a supporter of organic farming.

Tip. In the spring, you can lay a thick layer of mulch on the bed. It perfectly inhibits the growth of all weeds. And for planting strawberries, it will be enough to scoop a patch in the shelter to attach a young outlet there. The same operation can be carried out with black agrofibre, but instead of a patch make cross-shaped incisions.

Watering

In some sources there is such a phrase: "The soil for planting strawberries should be moist."It’s clear that it’s not dry, otherwise how will the sockets grow? But why water the garden 2 months before planting? This is again the recommendation of online farmers. It is immediately clear that the authors did not work on earth, otherwise they would not offer Sisyphus labor. Well, after all, there are a lot of things on the site, except for pouring water on bare ground. Yes, in 2 months nothing will remain of moisture.

Undoubtedly, there should be moisture in the soil for planting strawberries. But we recommend a total of 2 irrigation:

1. The week before landing. Abundant, moisture-charging, with soil soaking to a depth of 40 cm.
2. At the time of landing. It is watering in a hole, under a strawberry outlet.

Then you will water the beds depending on the weather, climate and plant condition.

Fertilizers

A very important component of soil preparation for planting strawberries. Just do not strive to provide food for the entire duration of the intended operation. Because the root system does not know how to calculate exactly when it needs a certain trace element. She will strive to absorb all the nutrients at once. Therefore, with excessive soil refueling, there is a high risk of getting powerful lush strawberry bushes, but with sparse flowering and tiny berries.

We will not give here the exact proportions of any mineral complexes. Because even through the fence there is completely different soil. Just write what is supposed to be added to the soil before planting:

1. Overripe manure. There are recommendations to make fresh manure. Strongly not recommend. Ammonia will burn small feeding roots, weed seeds will sprout in a meadow, and pathogenic bacteria instantly occupy strawberry rosettes.
2. Fat compost from turf. It can be prepared literally in 1.5-2 months. To do this, the layers of sod are laid in piles, abundantly watered and covered with a film. After about 55-60 days, you can sift the mass and lay in the beds.
3. Minerals. Here you can not do without chemistry. Urea, azofoska, nitrophoska will be required at first. In the presence of these fertilizers, green mass grows well and develops. In the second year of growth, potassium and phosphate complexes can already be added. They are responsible for lush flowering and abundant fruiting.
4. Lime, chalk, dolomite flour. These additives will be required if the soil on the bed has a strongly acidic reaction. Just don’t bring eggshells. No doubt, it improves the structure of the soil, but the acidity remains the same. Instead, replace it with a generous portion of ash. There will be more good.

By the way, organic fertilizers are best applied to the soil in the fall or early spring. And mineral complexes are added 10-11 days before planting. This is if you are going to plant strawberries in August.

During spring planting, the schedule for mineral water application remains the same, but organic matter is applied strictly only in the winter.

Fungicides

To pre-disinfect the soil under the strawberries, we recommend that you spill it thoroughly with any fungicide. It would be even better to thoroughly wet the soil with a strong hot burgundy potassium permanganate solution, and after a day populate it with useful microorganisms. This can be done with a solution of phytosporin. And just 5 grams of dry powder per bucket of plain water is enough.

All procedures must be carried out no later than 12 days before landing. That is how much is the minimum period for the complete population of beds with useful microflora and the destruction of pathogenic bacteria. Now you can not worry about your young plants. You did everything you needed.

How to prepare the soil for planting strawberries? It is clear that the process is not one day. But then the crop will then be appropriate. Large sweet berries - is this not every gardener's dream?

Video: preparing soil for planting strawberry seedlings