Grow The Best Strawberries Storeys Country Wisdom Bulletin A – 190 – Louise Riotte

Hoe as often as necessary to clean out any weeds that may spring up between plants. As you work, hoe and cultivate toward the plants. This will keep the roots from being killed by exposure to air. But keep the crowns of the plants at ground level at all times. If you are using a cultivator on a large planting, set the teeth on each side so they will not stir the soil more than 1 inch deep near the rows.

This will prevent loosening the plants or cutting their roots. Generally speaking, no cultivating is done in the spring of the fruiting year. If recommendations for cultivation and mulching have been followed, it is not likely that weeds will be a serious problem before the crop is picked. If you are planning to renew your planting, you then should cultivate and hoe just as you would for a newly set area.

Remove Those Blossoms Culture of newly set-out strawberry plants should be directed toward vigorous growth rather than flowering or bearing. During the first season, remove blossom stems on the plants as soon as they appear. This is done to strengthen the plant and also to increase the number of runner plants. Look into the future, as I try to do, and know that blossom removal, hard as it may be to do, is a definite advantage.

This is because early-formed runner plants will bear the most fruit the following year. You will get your reward — you just have to wait a little longer for it. Mulching I’ve always considered mulching one of the most important operations in caring for a strawberry bed. It’s especially important in northern sections as winter protection.

The crowns of any plants that remain unprotected are often severely injured by low winter temperatures. This becomes noticeable the following spring, evidenced by weak growth and reddish foliage. Eventually, when the berries ripen, the plants may wilt and collapse. Mulching will also prevent the plants from being heaved out of the ground as the result of a hard freeze and eventual thawing of the earth.

Mulching keeps down weeds, keeps the berries clean, and conserves moisture during the growing season. It prevents infecting organisms in soil from splashing up on plants during rains. Also raindrops splashing on bare soil detach particles that are carried away by surface water — and good, organic soil should not be lost.

What you will use for your mulch is not as important as the fact that it is being used. Many materials will serve. Small-grain straws and marsh hay are among the best mulching materials, but there are others that are satisfactory. You may use pine needles, ferns, composted manure, hay, Sudan grass, mixtures of kafir and sorghum fodders, and mixtures of spring oats, straw, and sorghum fodders.

Do you remember the strawberries of your childhood, dew-covered and fresh-picked on a bright June morning? They had a delicious aroma and melt-in-your-mouth sweetness totally unlike any store-bought berries you ever tasted. And how good they were in a warm shortcake topped with a light mound of real, fresh-whipped cream. Can you recapture all this glory? You bet you can. If there is one fruit every homesteader and suburbanite should grow, it is strawberries, for strawberries are: • The first fruit of the season.

• The quickest to bear of any fruit. • Easy to grow. • Expensive in stores. • Better quality when home grown. And no matter where you live, there is a variety that will thrive and do well in your region. Though they do best in the cooler, moist regions, they can be grown in hot, dry climates, especially where windbreaks can be provided and supplemental watering is possible during the critical months of July, August, and September.

Strawberry plants respond for the gardener in direct proportion to the care they receive. Larger yields of high-quality fruit await those who improve the soil, devote extra attention to cultivation, provide irrigation if needed, and mulch the planting properly. Strawberries (Fragaria chiloensis in the family Rosaceae) are the first fruit to ripen in the spring, and they are highly nutritious. A single portion of fresh strawberries supplies more than the minimum daily requirement of vitamin C. There is, in fact, more vitamin C in a cupful of strawberries than in a medium-sized orange or half a medium grapefruit.

Fresh, high- flavored, undamaged fruit generally contains more vitamin C. Preserving or freezing may destroy a sixth to a half of the vitamin C content. OceanofPDF.com How They Grow Set healthy plants in moist soil in your prepared bed in early spring. They will produce new roots in a few days. A few days later, each plant usually has several new leaves of normal size. For those plants that send out runners (most of the popular varieties do), runners will begin to emerge in June.

Growing from where the leaves join the main stem, these runners will form new plants, which will take root near the original plant. New runners then grow from the new plants, and in this way a succession of independent new plants soon is growing around the original plant. Plants produce blossoms the first year, and these will develop into fruit if they are not pinched off. Do pinch them off, which will encourage your plants to develop strong root systems and vigorous growth.

Your reward will be next season’s abundant crop of large, healthy, delicious berries.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

Book Information

• Unique ID: ddb36cd747144ec9
• File Extension: .pdf
• File Size: 1,978,815 bytes (1.887 MB)
• Title: –
• Author: Unknown
• ISBN: 9781580170277, 9781580176415, 9781580176422, 9781580173704, 9781580175562, 9781580175579, 9781580172127, 9781603420242, 9781580171588, 4136652658
• Pages: 55
• Language: English (en)

Reading & Word Statistics

• Estimated Reading Time: 47.2 minutes
• Total Words: 9,439
• Total Characters: 55,500
• Average Words per Page: 171.62
• Average Characters per Page: 1009.09

Most Frequent Words

plants (141), strawberries (65), soil (59), strawberry (57), plant (54), berries (43), planting (35), use (33), com (31), one (31), new (29), fruit (26), spring (26), leaves (26), grow (25), season (25), roots (24), growing (23), system (23), oceanofpdf (22), bed (21), set (21), runners (21), crop (21), first (20), mulch (20), produce (20), varieties (19), often (19), rows (18), best (17), way (17), two (17), winter (17), used (17), good (16), early (16), usually (16), large (16), water (16), organic (15), rot (15), inches (15), get (14), fresh (14), year (14), fall (14), inch (14), many (13), well (13), also (13), garden (13), add (13), dry (12), green (12), small (12), between (12), manure (12), storey (12), irrigation (11), days (11), root (11), put (11), ground (11), remove (11), cold (11), keep (11), damage (11), weeds (11), time (11), sugar (11), diseases (10), three (10), frost (10), avoid (10), grass (10), space (10), pick (10), grown (9), matter (9), several (9), crowns (9), feet (9), make (9), fertilizer (9), using (9), cup (9), isbn (9), protection (8), soon (8), blossoms (8), blossom (8), buds (8), either (8), spread (8), summer (8), freeze (8), temperatures (8), areas (8), less (8).

PDF Download