How to plant strawberries with seeds: planting and care rules
Strawberry - these are small berries, but how tasty they are! The delicacy is loved by almost everyone. In addition to its magical taste, this berry has many beneficial properties. All useful qualities are explained by the unique composition of the berry. How to plant a small berry? Scions or seeds? "Seeds are much more interesting!" - Experienced gardeners consider.
Content:
- Where to get strawberry seeds?
- Preparing seeds and soil for planting
- How to care for seedlings
- Other ways to breed strawberries
Where to get strawberry seeds?
The first thing to do is buy the seeds... These can be purchased at any agricultural store. Some people try to grow themselves strawberries from your own seeds. This is not as difficult as it seems at first glance. Strawberries can indeed be grown from their own seeds.
There are two ways to get the seeds:
- Buy in store
- The seeds can be harvested by yourself
If you want to prepare the seeds yourself, then choose the ripe and largest berries. You can get seeds either at the base or in the middle. It is in these places that more or less large seeds with developed embryos are found. The plant has more "energy" in such places.
When choosing berries for harvesting raw materials, pay attention to the bush - it must be strong and healthy, there should be no signs of damage.
Cut the seeds with a thin layer of pulp and place on paper to dry the seeds... After the mass has dried, rub it with your fingers to loosen the seeds. Place the seeds in a glass container.
Preparing seeds and soil for planting
Stratify seeds before planting. They should be moist. Stratification produced at a temperature of three degrees above zero. The term is about three months. Stir the seeds every ten days to keep them dry. Make sure that there is no excess moisture, if there is little water, then it can be topped up.
Dry the seeds before planting.
If you do not have enough time for such a procedure, you can try another method:
- Pour one gram of seeds with ten milliliters of concentrated sulfuric acid for ten minutes.
- Then rinse these seeds for half an hour under running water.
- Dry the seeds - now you can start them plant.
It is impossible to accurately predict the germination and viability of seeds in the future, so it is better to plant several bags at once. Otherwise, you can get into the most unpleasant situation when there is simply nothing to land in the ground.
Take care in advance about preparing the soil for growing a wonderful berry, since the growth and development of the plant depends on this stage.
The ideal would be to make a mixture of fifty percent turf, twenty-five percent peat and twenty-five percent sand. Add quite a bit of wood ash and rotted manure, or fertilizers.
Alas, there can be a variety of pathogens in the soil. diseases, roots weeds, larvae of harmful insects, so the earth needs to be steamed. For this, use an oven heated to one hundred and fifty degrees. At this temperature, the earth in the oven can only be held for thirty minutes.Let the soil cool and then start planting strawberries. Note: in this way the earth is prepared for other plants.
Already at the end of winter you can land the seeds this berry. Fill the containers with prepared soil and tamp it a little, pour the seeds on top, sprinkle them with earth, pour a drop. It is best to spray the newly planted seeds with a spray bottle - a watering can will only do harm. Then cover the top layer with oilcloth so that it does not dry out.
The next stage: hardening - it is necessary to process the seeds with cold.
There is nothing complicated in this process. just take the box of seeds outside where the temperature is zero degrees. In order for the seeds to harden, it is enough to put them out in the cold for three weeks. It is very convenient if the box is small - you can simply put it in the refrigerator, bury a large container in the snow. Stratification is very important. Without it, the seeds may not sprout, sprout unevenly, but in any case, the plants will be weak.
How to care for seedlings
Care is quite simple if you follow certain rules. In mid-April, the container with seeds should be placed in a fairly warm room, where the seeds will sprout. Seedling at first it will grow very slowly, and when it gains strength, the process will go faster.
Dive seedlings three centimeters fourteen days after sprouting. Carefully remove the seedling with a small stick, pinch the end of the root and drop it into the prepared box. After the appearance of five leaves (around the end of April), dive the seedlings again.
Plant the seedlings in your garden in early summer.
Don't wait for the first year harvest if you are planting strawberries with seeds. But by the end of summer, you will definitely receive material for planting in the form of outlets.
Other ways to breed strawberries
Besides growing from seed strawberries can be propagated in other ways. After all, the berry will grow, you want to get a similar one harvest... If the strawberries are more than three years old, then the method of dividing the bushes can be used. Young plants cannot be propagated in this way.
The "antennae" breeding method is very popular.
Each mustache gives life to a new plant. First, a rosette of leaves is formed, and then the roots grow. This growing method has not only advantages, but also disadvantages. Daughter plants may not have the qualities of a parent at all. If the berries, grown by you, gave a good harvest, this does not mean at all that their "descendants" will be as fertile. It is for this reason that it is necessary to carefully monitor the berry during the fruiting period.
Plants with good yields should be left and the rest destroyed. With this method, the quality of plants is better preserved, and problems with reproduction plants will not arise.
More information can be found in the video.