Growing strawberries in buckets for early harvest and warming up the soil
STRAWBERRY IN BUCKETS - EARLY HARVEST
Many people want to eat strawberries early, and they go to all sorts of tricks to achieve this. I also decided to try it, but it all came down to finances.
Usually strawberries are grown in the open field - that means, wait for the soil to thaw in spring. Even if you build a mini-greenhouse over the strawberries, the ground under the bushes still thaws for a long time. It's a shame: it's the end of March outside, the sun is bright, and you sit and wait for the earth to warm up. And then it is even more offensive: only, at last, the soil thaws, cloudy cold weather immediately sets in.
So, there is only one way out - to warm the earth? And why alone, I thought, because applying such a method in March is an expensive pleasure. No, we will go the other way. We transplant strawberry bushes in August into 7-liter plastic buckets, and in November we lower them into a cellar or a pit, which we then insulate.
I have a small glass greenhouse with a polycarbonate roof. Usually in March it already has a positive temperature. I pull the buckets of strawberry bushes out of the cellar and put them on the shelving in the greenhouse. The shelving has only one side open - the south, the rest are insulated. At night, I cover the rack with spunbond. There are four shelves on the rack: the lower one at a height of half a meter from the ground, the upper one - one and a half meters. Buckets of strawberry bushes are there until I start planting tomatoes there.
Now the strawberries are moving to another rack, on the street. I have it conical with three platforms. On the first platform 16 buckets are placed, on the second - 10, on the third - 5. The rack is closed from the sides and ends with polycarbonate on small hinges (for access to plants).
The first platform is at a height of 0 m, the second - 3 m, the third - 1 m. Under the rack, you can plant strawberries in the usual way.
Those who do not want to bother with the shelving on the street can just make a flat area and put buckets, or you can spread them around the garden, wherever they like. In November, the buckets must be lowered into the cellar. Care for strawberries in buckets is normal, except that you need to water more often.
When planting, do not forget to put expanded clay on the bottom of the bucket and drill holes to drain the water.
Strawberries in buckets allow you to harvest three to four weeks earlier. And if you grow remontant varieties, you can feast on berries until the very frost.
And I also propose a cheap way to warm up the earth. In August, you dig a narrow trench 30 cm deep, 4, 2 m long and put a corrugated hose with a diameter of 30-40 mm into it, bringing its ends out. One end of the hose is at ground level, the other 30 cm higher. At the end, which is at ground level, a plug is installed, the trench is covered with earth, and strawberries are planted in it.
In March, pour boiling water into the hose (do not forget to open the plug). When the water has cooled, refill it several times a day. On top, cover the bushes with semicircular polycarbonate micro greenhouses, each 2 m long.
But this method is suitable only for those who obeyed their parents and did not scrapped grandfather's washer-ovens.
See also: Planting strawberries if you are in the country, in the garden only on weekends
VILLAGERS OF THE SECOND GROUP
In recent years, something incomprehensible has happened to the climate. On the one hand, warming is good, but when chilly May comes after sunny March and April, sometimes even with frost, unhappy gardeners are not happy with such warming. And if there are also frosts in early June, then it’s quite a disaster.
Or, say, in autumn it is warm, warm, and suddenly - bam! - September 20 just one night with a temperature of -5 ″. And that's all: tomatoes, cucumbers, heads hung. And the most annoying thing is that the weather is warm until November.
True, here it is necessary to divide gardeners into two groups. These are the grandparents who leave for the cities to accompany their grandchildren to school, and those who stay until the frost.
The first group wants May and June to be warm and to harvest in August, while the second wants to grow two crops.
What can I say? Let's adjust. I will give an example from my practice, but I will just make a reservation that my advice is for middle-income summer residents.
About two years ago, I grew a good seedlings of peppers.
At the end of May, I planted it in the ground under the arches, covered it with spunbond and on top with a film. And on June 3 in the evening it suddenly became sharply colder to 3 °. My fragile seedlings were in danger of death.
At first I decided to pour hot water over the garden bed, but I remembered that peppers do not like humid air. A long corrugated hose with a diameter of 40 mm caught my eye.
I wrapped them in a circular arc on the ground - it turned out two circles. One end of the hose was lifted 1 m above the ground, the other was put on the ground outside the greenhouse. The hose is covered with the edges of the spunbond and film.
He heated three buckets of water and poured it into the hose. When water came out of the second end of the hose, I raised it a little and fixed it at a height of 10 cm. Early in the morning, at 4 o'clock, it was 2 ° outside. The water in the hose cooled down and I reheated the water and put it into the hose. Since one end of the hose was at a height of 1 m, and the other - 10 cm, hot water displaced cold water, and the air in the greenhouse began to heat up again. In the morning the greenhouse was warm and dry.
In the same way, you can save tomatoes in the fall, which also do not like humid air. But this method, I repeat, is suitable only for those who have not thrown away the washer-ovens or who can quickly boil water in the bath.
See also: Strawberry-strawberry: planting material + planting + care + feeding
CULTIVATION OF STRAWBERRY IN BUCKETS - VIDEO
© Author: V.M. Moscow region.
Below other entries on the topic "Dacha and garden - with their own hands"
- Cultivation of strawberry varieties Elsanta, Polka and Lord in Siberia - my reviews (Tomsk)
- Cultivation of remontant strawberry Elizabeth II - my feedback
- Varieties of strawberries for harvesting berries all season
- 100% fruitful, proven strawberry cultivation scheme: part of 2
- Why do we need earthworms in cups with strawberry seedlings?
- How to grow strawberries from a seed in the home
- The ideal way to propagate strawberries with a survival rate of 100% rosettes
- Growing white strawberries (Pineapple and other varieties) planting and care
- Planting strawberries in late April or early May - professional advice
- Strawberries in an annual crop - my way of growing
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Another important point is the choice of soil. On sandy soils (although some are trying to do this), large yields of strawberries are not to be expected. Why? The answer is simple: sand conducts water well into the subsoil. Therefore, with abundant watering (including prolonged rains), useful substances do not have time to be absorbed and go down, being washed out. And if watering is poor, then the plants die of hunger, as I wrote above. Loamy and sandy soils containing humus and nutrients are mainly suitable for growing strawberries.
In short, we need a "golden mean". And do not let the water stagnate in the beds! To keep it dry under the bushes, I use different methods: I put sawdust, lay straw, put props or tie bushes so that the branches do not bend under the weight of berries.