Any berry crop requires painstaking and careful preparation before planting. And for strawberries, one should attend to not only the selection of a place and seed material, but also the correct preparation of the soil substrate, for which there are requirements.
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What should be the soil for strawberries
Before talking about the soil, you need to say about the basic requirements for the planting site, because these same requirements also affect the soil.
| Site selection criterion | Indicator |
| Illumination | At least 7-8 hours a day. |
| Groundwater level | 80 cm to 1.5 m |
| Landing site relief | Slope facing south, southwest or southeast. |
| Slope curvature | Not more than 5 º, it is better if 1-1.5 º |
And also strawberries do not tolerate drafts and cold winds, make sure that the selected place is not heavily blown.
The following can be said about the soil for strawberries:
- It should be loose.
- The pH of the soil should be close to neutral (that is, not less than 5.5 and not more than 8).
- The soil should be moist, not wet. That is, the water content in the soil should be no more than 90% and no less than 70%.
- For strawberries, medium or light loams, sandy loams are suitable. It, of course, can grow on heavy loams and on sandy soils, but it will bear very little fruit.
- The soil should have a high humus content (about 3%).
Strawberries are capable of depleting the soil on which they sit, so they need to be replanted every 3-4 years to a new, more fertile soil
Strawberry predecessors
Crop rotation is extremely important for strawberries, so you should select the beds for planting very carefully. Be careful not to plant strawberries after crops that harm them.
The most harmful predecessors of strawberries are Solanaceae. Indeed, it is extremely harmful to plant strawberries after potatoes or tomatoes, since they impoverish the soil and can infect it with fungal diseases or rot.
You should also not place strawberries on cabbage or zucchini beds, because these plants tend to extract phosphorus, potassium and nitrogen from the soil, which are so necessary for strawberry bushes.
Strawberries also grow poorly after Composite crops, such as Jerusalem artichoke, because they leave behind a soil poor in both nutrients and moisture.
The predecessors useful for strawberries are:
- Carrot.
- Bow.
- Garlic not only enriches the soil with nutrients, but also drives away pests when planted nearby.
- Parsley, by the way, is good and easy to plant next to it, as it drives away slugs.
- Legumes (peas, beans, lentils) that enrich the soil with nitrogen compounds.
- Alkaloid lupine, which is also a green manure, is able to make the soil whiter, loose.
- White buckwheat is not only a useful green manure, but also an excellent honey plant, which fills the soil with a whole complex of nutrients.
Indeed, such an order of crop change would be the most optimal and correct both for the strawberry itself and for the crops following it.
It is necessary to immediately explain that various varieties of strawberries, such as large-fruited or small-fruited, remontant, red, white, will not require specific soil. We only remember that you cannot plant strawberries in the soil where the strawberries were sitting.
Preparing soil for strawberries
To improve the fertility of strawberries, the soil is prepared ahead of time, preferably a week before planting the plant, and preferably in the fall, so that the beds have time to overheat over the winter. And they do it like this:
- In the place allocated for strawberries, we dig the soil to a depth of about 30 cm, using both a pitchfork and a shovel. And also during the digging, we remove all weeds and stone inclusions.
After digging, the soil becomes loose and grainy, strawberries need this to equip their roots with oxygen
- If the beds are prepared in the fall, then 8 kg of manure (compost can be added), 60 g of superphosphate, 25 g of potassium salt and 15 g of potassium chloride are added to the soil substrate. Provided that the soil is prepared a week before planting, humus (about 6 kg) or rotted compost of about 8 kg and 25 g of potassium sulfate is added to it. All calculations are carried out at 1 m2.
Some gardeners prefer to add peat instead of manure, humus or compost, but we must not forget that peat soil, firstly, has a pH of 4-6.5, and, secondly, it tends to heat up a large amount of water in itself
- Immediately before planting, the soil should be shed with water at the rate of 10 li per m2.
Remember that it is advisable to settle the water or pass it through good filters.
Preparing the soil for growing strawberries at home
When you grow strawberries at home, planting them in pots, containers or other containers, you can use ready-made soil for strawberries. Or you can prepare the soil yourself.
- We take a universal soil substrate and mix it with neutral high-moor peat in 1/1 proportions.
Universal soil is a kind of soil base for strawberries, but peat is an organic component that contributes to the healthy development of the plant
- Then add sand approximately (15% of the total mass) and perlite (15%).
The sand will make the soil less hydroscopic, and the perlite will not allow the soil to cake, which guarantees the active development of the root system
- Then we put 6-7 g of crushed charcoal into the soil substrate.
Coal, of wood origin, according to many gardeners, is an excellent mineral fertilizer
- We mix the resulting soil.
Don't forget to make a drainage layer in pots.
Video: preparing the soil for planting strawberries
Features of soil preparation for growing strawberries in bags and pipes
Many gardeners like non-standard approaches to growing berry crops, for example, strawberries can be grown in nylon bags or in PVC pipes. And although planting in such unusual containers requires special materials and preparation, the soil itself for strawberries is not very different from the soil substrate for pots and containers. For example, the base soil for bags and pipes is the same as for planting in pots or containers. But soil supplements are excellent.
- Soil for planting in bags. A feature of the soil in this case should be that instead of perlite, vermiculite, which is able to retain water, and small sawdust should be added to it.
Remember that drainage in the form of expanded clay must be put in bags
- Soil for planting in pipes. A feature of soil for pipes is that 10% of sand is added to the soil, pre-mixing it with fine sawdust. And also you need to put 10 g of wood ash in the soil substrate, which will prevent rotting plants.
Do not forget that when planting strawberries in vertical pipes, drainage is not necessary, but it is desirable
Features of soil for strawberry seedlings
Planting seeds for seedlings requires a special painstaking attitude of the gardener, so we will analyze the preparation of the soil substrate step by step.
- We mix neutral peat, biohumus and river sand in a ratio of 1: 3: 1.
If peat tablets are used, then you only need to fill them with boiling water and be sure to add sand and vermicompost
- We sterilize the soil in the oven for about half an hour, at a temperature of 100 º C.
Of course, it is not necessary to sterilize the seedling soil in this way, you can use any of the three presented methods
- Add perlite (about 10%) and mix with the main mixture.
This is how 10% perlite of the total mass of the substrate looks like
- We lay out in containers.
It is not necessary to lay out the soil for seedlings in specialized containers, you can use any suitable containers, just remember that holes are required for leaving water
- Immediately before planting, the soil should be moistened with a sprayer.
Remember that the soil is only sprayed before planting seeds, as excessive moisture is detrimental to strawberries.
So, although the soil for strawberries is special, it is not difficult to prepare such a soil and it is quite possible at home. You just need to clearly imagine how strawberries will be grown further, in open ground or closed, in bags, pots, or maybe, in general, in pipes. And if strawberry seedlings are grown, then it is imperative to disinfect the soil in which the seeds will be placed.
