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Strawberry Care: 3 Mistakes That Reduce Yields – Don’t Waste Your Time
10.04.2024 18:00
There is a certain order that summer residents need to follow in order to harvest a good crop of fruit, berry and vegetable crops.
For convenience, gardeners divide the work by season. The main thing is not to include in the list anything unnecessary or something that will not benefit the plants.
Anastasia Kovrizhnykh , an expert of the online publication BelNovosti, an agronomist and landscape designer, told what should not be done in the spring when caring for strawberries.
First, mulch the bed.
This procedure can and should be carried out, but not earlier than the beginning of May. Before this date, mulching can only be started in the south.
The fact is that if you cover the soil with straw or other material, it will warm up worse.
This will affect the recovery of plants after winter, flowering and fruiting.
It also makes no sense to add mulch until the main spring fertilizing of the berry bush has been carried out.
Secondly, add organic matter
If you add cow dung or bird droppings to the bed, the fertilizer will decompose worse due to the cold soil. Therefore, the plants will not receive the necessary nutrients in full.
The introduction of humus and peat as a mulch layer is also excluded.
You can start this work after the soil warms up to 15-20 degrees Celsius.
Thirdly, do not rush with mineral fertilizers
Again, the soil needs to warm up.
For example, nitrogen is added no earlier than the soil warms up to +10 degrees Celsius. Urea is added after the soil warms up to 12-14 degrees Celsius.
There is also no point in applying phosphorus fertilizers if the soil temperature is below 14 degrees Celsius.
The additives are best absorbed after the soil microflora is activated and the plants are finally awakened, which occurs at 15-20 degrees Celsius.
In addition, we must not forget that some fertilizers are washed away with precipitation, and there is especially a lot of it in early spring.
Previously, we talked about which plants should not be planted next to thujas .
