You pamper your strawberries like a princess: water them, feed them, protect them from the cold, but they respond with small berries and stunted bushes?
Your "caring" hands are to blame. For example, loosening the soil around the bushes is a deadly mistake.
Strawberry roots are 5-7 cm deep, and any scratch from a hoe opens the gates for gray mold and powdery mildew. Instead, mulch the beds with pine needles or crushed bark.
They will not only retain moisture, but will also repel slugs, which love to feast on ripe berries.
Another sin is sprinkling watering. Drops of water on the leaves turn into lenses, causing burns, and the berries rot right on the bushes due to excess moisture.
Set up drip irrigation: bury plastic bottles with holes in the bottom between the rows. Fill them with water every three days - this way the moisture will go straight to the roots, bypassing the leaves.
But the main secret is in pruning. After harvesting, do not cut off all the leaves at the root! Remove only the old and diseased ones, and leave the young ones. They will continue to feed the plant, and the bushes will produce twice as many flower stalks next year.
And if you want to extend fruiting until autumn, plant remontant varieties and feed them with nettle infusion. Pour 1 kg of fresh nettle with 10 liters of water, leave for a week, then dilute 1:10 and water once every two weeks.
And don't forget about "rejuvenation". Every 3-4 years, move the strawberries to a new place, otherwise the soil will become depleted and the berries will become smaller.
The best predecessors are garlic and onions, the worst are tomatoes and potatoes. And to get a super harvest, pick off the first flower stalks - this stimulates the growth of powerful bushes.
