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Juicy, bright and fragrant berries of strawberries always look seductively. For many, this pleasure is available in the country area, and who has no land, but there is a balcony, there is also an opportunity to grow your own strawberry harvest. True, its amount will be somewhat limited, but to enjoy, berries will be quite enough. You can plant strawberries on a balcony overlooking the sunny side: southern or oriental.
It must be immediately noted that there is no special "balcony" strawberries. For growing on the balcony used ordinary garden strawberryBut grades are selected, the most adapted to cramped conditions. For example, it is recommended to choose varieties that form compact bushes not more than 25 cm high. Suitable strawberries GLERY (Early), Darselect (average) and Florence. Putting culture different period Ripening, you can shoot berries throughout the vegetative season. Also for balcony cultivation is ideal Forest strawberry and hybrid varietiesobtained as a result of selection of garden and forest crops.
Council. Removable strawberry varieties fruit from spring to autumn, and some of them when creating favorable conditions For growth, give a harvest year-round.
There are two ways to grow strawberries on the balcony: grow seedlings with their own hands from seeds, or put ready-made bushes purchased on the market. Growing strawberries from seeds the process is longer and complex, but it has its advantages. Unlike purchased seedlings, the seed method guarantees the production of strawberries of the desired variety.
Seeds can be prepared independently or buy in a specialized store. To get seeds from berries on their own, select well-rided berries, carefully cut off the top layer of pulp together with brown splashes, and fold out on the paper in the sun. When the strawberry mass turns into a dry crust, it is tricious to dust-like state and stored until time sowing in paper packaging, putting in the refrigerator. Separate seeds from the pulp, as they advise some gardeners, not necessarily, as they will germinate anyway.
Let's start with a more complex process of growing strawberries. It should be prepared for its implementation since summer, harvesting seeds (if not purchased).
The germination of the sowing material depends on its competent training. The main stage of pre-sowing processing is stratification, or the creation of conditions close to natural. Stratification will help harden seeds, make them more enduring and strong.
Strawberry seed stratification:
The ordering procedure is carried out immediately before sowing seeds into the ground. For example, if sowing is scheduled at the end of January, stratification should begin in the first half of the month. Having delivered the seed material of their refrigerator, it is heated directly in the container 2-3 days near the heating battery, after which they remove the top layer of fabric and dry slightly.
For the cultivation of strawberry seedlings, a light loose substrate is suitable, not oversaturated with mineral additives. It can be bought in the store or make it yourself.
What kind of soil is suitable for sowing strawberry seeds:
You can also take 3 parts of biohumus and 1 parts of large sand and low acidity peat. If there are no these components, garden soil cooked with autumn, mixed with river sand.
An important stage in the preparation of the Earth is disinfection. In the soil there are larvae and eggs of pests, fungal disputes and microorganisms, which are dangerous for young shoots. It is possible to disinfect the Earth in one of two ways: rolling in the oven for 20 minutes at a temperature of 200 0 C, or to disappear on a water bath for 30 minutes. With heat treatment, not only malicious organisms are destroyed, but also useful, so the capacity with soil is left for 3 weeks in a cool place to restore microflora.
This is the third stage in the process of growing strawberries from seeds. It will take a wide box with a height of no more than 10 cm, on the bottom of which is a small layer of drainage, as well as cassette containers for seedlings.
How to grow seedlings:
Important. If seedling is grown near heating batteries, air also needs moisture. For this, spraying from the pulverizer 2 times a day.
When real leaves appear, the seedlings are peeling and seed plastic cassettes. The sprout is approaching a thin stick, removed from the ground, and it repents the tip of the root (dive). Next, in the soil in the cell of the cassette, a deepening is made, and a sprout is placed in it. The soil is poured and slightly pressed his finger at the root itself. Only one plant is placed in each cell.
Approximately at the end of April, when the plants are fixed, they can be planted in pots on the balcony. At this time, the bushes of strawberries no longer need additional lighting and are ready to adapt to temperature conditions On the unheated balcony.
Floral containers, vases, including suspended, plastic boxes are used to land seedlings. They are filled with sublinous soil with the addition of mineral complex fertilizers, or soils prepared independently: one part of the black soil, peat and humus with the addition of sawdust (300g) and sand (100g) by 10 kg of the mixture.
Plants in the pots are placed on the balcony in such a way as not to be blocked each other. Regular watering and shallow loans are carried out and weeds are cleaned. In early June, the strawberries will begin to bloom, and in June it will be possible to observe how bright, fragrant berries are matured on bushes.
In the garden plot of strawberries is grown by rooting young plants that have grown on the interstices of the mustache. Young bushes produce roots, not yet contacting the earth, you only need to press them to the soil, and they immediately go into growth. This is the natural and easiest method of breeding culture, and, if you can get high-quality landing material, you can use it.
The advantages of growing strawberries in rooted outlets:
You can land the strawberry strawberries all summer, as soon as it is possible to get planting material. Many gardeners cut into a mustache, not allowing them to be rooted to proper the landing of strawberries. This can take advantage and take young shoots for breeding culture at home on the balcony.
The cultivation of strawberries on the balcony allows ripe berries practically round year. The main thing is the right varieties and technology.
There is no special strawberry variety for the balcony. Most varieties in the closed soil give the worse yield. It uses popularity that allows you to collect berries several times over the season, self-polished and unpretentious.
The fruits of strawberry "Elizabeth Second" varieties are very large.
Grade "Elizabeth 2"
Record crops up to 5 kg of berries from one bush per season. The berries themselves are very large, beautiful with pleasant sourness. Requires a large amount of soil and regular fertilization.
Grade "Sarian F1"
Inferior in the magnitude of fruits and yields. It is the second in the list of recommended uniqueness recommended due to their unique unpretentiousness. Seeds have a high germination. The first harvest can be collected 4.5 months after the appearance of the first sprouts from seeds. Saplings quickly and abundantly give long mustes, which are full-fledged adult plants. It looks beautiful in suspended porridge. Resistant to drought, frost and fungal diseases.
Strawberry Sarian F1 varieties is great for ampel cultivation because of his long mustache.
Sort "Super"
Self-pollined and high-yielding. Fruits from late May to late autumn or winter, when the temperature on the balcony drops to 14 degrees. Several peaks of fruiting are distinguished: the end of May, the beginning of July, the end of August, mid-September. For the season from one bush, you can collect up to 2 kilograms of fragrant, sweet, somewhat elongated berries. Size of one berry up to 40 grams.
Grow strawberries on a balcony that gives a good crop, only by creating certain conditions.
Balcony strawberry (strawberries) demanding to the volume of soil. Each bush needs 3-5 liters of land, respectively, the diameter of a separately taken pot must be from 25 cm.
Strawberry on the balcony loves sunlight. Therefore, it is worth choosing the southern windows.
The best results give cultivation on southern balconies. When placed on the north side, it is recommended to use additional highlighting phytolampa.
The minimum duration of the daylight is 6 hours, recommended - 12-17.
Flowering and fruiting stops at temperatures below 14 degrees.
Temperature above 35 leads to a drop in immunity.
For growing strawberries, you can use a drip irrigation system.
Moisture- Drainage and holes in the bottom will avoid soiling and reinflowing roots.
During fruiting, the intensity of watering increases.
For improving the quality and quantity, the following tips will help you.
Most varieties are downtown plants. IN open soil Strawberry pollination occurs at the expense of insects, that on the loggia or balcony is unacceptable.
You can create conditions for cross-pollination with wind. To do this, arrange a draft or use fans. In the season of flowering, the devices include a few hours every 2-3 days and send airflow by tangent on racks or slides with strawberries.
It is possible to pollinate strawberries at home with a wet brush.
At the beginning of flowering, it is permissible to pollinating water irrigation. Pollen drops drops on the flowers below.
The most effective in the house is a manual method of pollination. A soft wetted tassel need to touch pollen on each flower.
Abundant blooming self-polluted varieties have a tendency to give a large number of small berries. To increase the weight of each berry, it is recommended to remove some of the buds.
The greatest crop gives bushes of the 2nd 3rd year. For the fourth year they are replaced with new young plants.
For the winter of tanks with strawberries should not be transferred to the apartment. If the balcony or loggia is glazed, and the temperature does not fall below 5 degrees, it is enough to sprinkle bushes with sawdust.
When the temperature drops below zero, the container should be insulated with underfloor materials, in order to prevent the end-to-end freezing of the soil.
To grow strawberries in the greenhouse or home conditions, you can use ultraviolet lamps that can replace sunlight.
Moisturize the ground while drying. Excessive watering in winter leads to reinforcement or moving roots.
When compliance with agrotechnics of plants have good immunity and less often suffer from pests.
Strawberries can damage:
Prevention and treatment of diseases are carried out during the growing season before flowing or after harvesting.
Plant in boxes is not optimal in terms of using the area. Ampel strawberries on the balcony looks more beautiful in kashpo or cascade containers. Practical suspended shelf, slides and multi-row narrow racks.
A special place occupies agropolite. Bags of such cloths as spunbond are perfectly passed by air and moisture, it is convenient to hang or put in pallets.
Soon the strawberry season will come - happy daches will be buckets to carry a ripe berry home. And what remains urban residents - with envy look at the neighbor's harvest or buy a crumpled yoke in the store? There is always a way out - you can grow on your balcony or windowsill. I take one berry, I look at the other, and the third is only poured. Of course, the crop will be small, but also its own, environmentally friendly.
Agrotechnical culture of culture in the open ground and residential room is very different - in this article all nuances homemade cultivation strawberry.
First you need to understand where it is planned to grow strawberries. You can cultivate berry bushes in ordinary flower potsBased on the calculation: 1 bush - 3 liters of land mixture. The pots must stand on a well-lit windowel, are ideal oriental and western windows.
It is allowed to grow strawberry bushes in balcony boxes. In this case, the distance between plants should be at least 15-18 cm, and the boxes should be purchased deep. If the balcony is focused on the northern direction, from growing cultural strawberries it is worth refusing - plants cannot harmoniously develop without sunlight. It will not be possible to get a harvest on the loggia blown by all winds - the strawberry does not tolerate drafts. 
An excellent result is noted when planting strawberries in suspended porridge - you can save the balcony area, taking it to growing colors or miniature vegetables.
Multi-tier outdoor vases - Here is another option to grow berries on the balcony, but it is possible to install such a design only on a spacious balcony - after all, when leaving the plants, it is necessary to approach the Vazon from all sides.
You can try to grow strawberries in plastic pipeswhich are installed vertically or suspend horizontally. With horizontal arrangement of pipes, the design takes a bit of space, especially when hanging near the wall.
More details about some methods of growing strawberries in the room and on the balcony.
In some pots, you can land the bushes of strawberries, because in the room heat, sunlight becomes more intense, under such conditions it is possible for the normal development of berry bushes.
The pot must be from ceramics or plastic, the broken shards are placed on the bottom of it, clamzit or pieces of foam - drainage is needed for the flow of excess irrigation water. The volume of the pot is at least 3 liters per plant, but too large pots can not be used - the root system will not be able to quickly prophes an earthen com. When watering, the ground will die for a long time, which can cause the development of fungal diseases.
Soil for planting can be bought in a flower shop, and you can do yourself in the following recipes:
Before using any soil substrate, it is necessary to displaced it with steaming at high temperatures.
The bushes are planted in a pot in such a way that the living heart is somewhat tumped over the surface of the soil. Watering plants carefully, trying not to get water into young leaves.
When growing strawberries in balcony boxes, it is not necessary to start this procedure earlier than the middle April - after all, freezing can be happening on the balcony (especially open).
Boxes are selected with high walls so that the root system of strawberries could develop freely. In short drawers it is impossible to plant a lot of bushes, the perfect distance between the centers of planted plants - 15-18 cm.
The bottom of the box should be drilled in several places, if it is deprived of factory drainage holes. The drainage layer is placed on the bottom, then fill the drawer with the prepared soil, plant plants and watered.
In the suspended porridge, it is best to plant cascading strawberry varieties. To suspend the pots with plants, it is necessary to immediately provide reliable fasteners, because the weight of the pot with the ground and the berry bushes will be quite significant. Otherwise, the procedure is also carried out as when landing bushes in pots. 
In plastic pipes, it is quite convenient - the balcony is not littered, because the whole design is suspended near the walls.
The technology of manufacturing the container of pipes is simple - the horizontal parts are cut off holes for the planting of bushes, they can be individual or one common. Side parts are closed with plugs. Downstairs have several holes for water drain. The pipe is filled with soil, the drainage must be laid down. The design suspended to the wall and plant strawberry bushes.
Also do not forget that you can buy suspended pockets and phytomoduli for planting strawberries on the balcony. This is a super-free design that is inexpensive, and the seats saves a lot.
Choosing grades of strawberries or strawberries for growing on the balcony or windowsill, you should remember the timing of the fruiting culture. In total, three types of strawberries are distinguished, which is fruit at a certain time:
To get a crop throughout the summer, it is worth stopping your choice on the varieties of repair strawberries, including many ampels (ideal for growing in hanging baskets).
Queen Elizabeth, Queen Elizabeth 2, Albion, Alexandria, Baron Solemacher, ampel and other varieties.
The container and pots are quickly dry, especially in hot summer days, so it is necessary to install watering mode - 2 times a week. In severe heat, watering is carried out as needed.
The bushes are better developed when the roots supply with oxygen - the land in pots need to be periodically exploded, trying not to damage the roots. It is best to schedule this operation once a week.
This will help the plants not to spend the forces on the harvest, and further grate.
The removal of the mustache is carried out only if the balcony has insufficient lighting. If the sun's rays caress young bushes from morning to middle day or from lunch to the evening, the mustache can be left. Flowers develop on the mustache, which turn into selected fragrant berries. One bush can withstand no more than 3-4 mustache.
Polling the colors of strawberries should pay special attention - without this operation done with the help of a conventional watercolor brush, the crop may not appear, because the access of insects on closed balconies is difficult. Conduct cross-pollination, transferring to the tassel from one flower to another - this is the key to a rich harvest.
The first feeding of strawberry bushes is carried out in the phase of the appearance of the fifth real sheet, using special fertilizers for strawberries. At the beginning of the summer, you can feed the nitrogen fertilizers, the deadlines are set 1 time in 15 days. In the middle of summer, phosphoric and potash fertilizers are used.
Stop feeding in the first decade of September.
Unfluous balconies cannot provide strawberry protection in frost containers. Boxes are completely covered with sawdust, insulating materials, sometimes remove the pots in the foam box.
Storage of pots with plants on the balcony cannot guarantee the safety of the root system into severe frosts, so it is best to put the plants into the garage or cellar and leave there for winter storage at temperatures from -2 ° C to + 2 ° C.
Plants can grow perfectly in container culture and fruit up to 3 years, after this bushes are replaced with new ones, and old things are destroyed.
Strawberries from the familiar strawberries are distinguished by a number of signs: the size of the berries, the complexity of their separation from the fruit, color, aroma. There are more than 2 thousand strawberry varieties, while strawberry is incommensurable less. The removal by selection of removable varieties allowed gardens and those who use their balconies and window sills to get harvest from late spring and to deep autumn.
Solving, is it possible to grow strawberries on the balcony, you need to choose the right variety. It should be not just removable, but adapted for growing in a closed soil. The most famous strawberries for the balcony:
The exact time of sowing for each variety is yours. It is best to specify on the packaging, where manufacturers always indicate their recommendations. In general, it is possible to sow at any time since February to August, but the result depends on the crop of sowing.
So that the strawberries on the balcony could give a harvest in the first year, it is necessary to sow in February-March, then the bustle will have enough time to take the root and deciduous mass by the summer. If you sit later, the strawberries on the windowsill will give its first harvest for the next year.
Each remote grade lives in one pot of 2-3 years at least, so the care for it is required year-round.
The cultivation of strawberries on the balcony is possible from seeds or resetting the finished seedlings. The first option is a longer process, but it has its own advantages. By buying the sowing material of the famous manufacturer, you get a chance to enrich your collection with a completely new and unusual variety, which no one has seen before.
Before growing strawberries from seeds on the windowsill, sowing material is stratified. In order to take a wet napkin, wrapping seeds into it and placed in the refrigerator. There at a temperature of +4 0 s need to hold 5 days. After that, you can immediately sow. Experience of gardeners shows that it should not be neglected by this stage, since the friendship of the appearance of shoots depends on it.
By itself, the process of growing strawberries in pots is not complicated. Following step by step of the given instruction, you can not doubt - the result will be. If you can not give your sowing southern windows or provide artificial eyelet, then the rich harvest does not have to wait. However, with sufficient illumination, which can be secured by conventional phytolams, berries will not wait to wait.
Consider how to grow strawberries from seeds on the balcony in stages:
Strawberries at home will feel good if we take at least 3 liters of soil for each adult plant.
For seedlings, the box will need, where we will lay the seeds, then you will need a dime pot (cups) of about 8 cm. And already from the cups of bushes "will move" into spacious pots.
If the strawberries on the balcony and the windowsill are your favorite hobby, then you probably have a lot of pots. They can be completely used again, that's just every time you definitely disinfect. This will avoid the appearance of mold and fungi. For adult bushes fit boxes and containers, pots and porridges. On the bottom necessarily lay a 3-4 cm layer from pebbles for drainage.
Best soil for strawberries - specialized. Such can be found in stores. It is intended for berry crops grown on the windowsill. It includes peat, sand, fertilizer. You can prepare a substrate and independently. For example, mix peat with sawdust in the proportion of 1: 2.
Strawberries on the windowsill need abundant nutrition. Best fertilizer It will be organic and environmentally friendly biohumus. Your bushes will be lush with him, and the berries mature exactly on time.
Biohumus can be replaced by all mineral fertilizersWhat is profitable and useful.
For growing strawberries at home, seeds are sown to the surface of the soil in the box in the blackboard with sand. Then the crops are carefully moistened and covered with film. A week later, friendly shoots should seem. It is not necessary to remove the film. Initially, it is open on a little bit to ventilate the plants and immediately close back. Only in a few days the film can be removed at all.
In the stage of 2 leaves, searches can be divened across the cups.
From the cups to the permanent place of the bush transplant then when the roots are completely tired by the earthen com. In cups on the bottom, you can put a crushed eggshell. Then, when replant with a permanent pot, you will not need drainage.
The removable strawberry on the balcony does not deliver special troubles. It needs to periodically feed organic fertilizers (1-2 times a month from spring and to late autumn), watered, drawing a mustache.
Spraying of foliage is not required, although plants like high humidity. If the foliage is drunk, then bushes can be arranged a warm shower. This procedure is performed in the morning or evening hours so that the moisture droplets do not cause burns from too hot twisted sunlight.
Almost all varieties used to grow strawberries on the windowsill require artificial pollination. This allows you to get berries proper form. Insufficient pollination leads to the appearance of curves deformed berries. Of course, in the urban conditions, take insect pollinators just nowhere. But there is a way out.
It is not difficult to work the "bee".
To pollinate strawberries just once a day in the morning in the season of active flowering with a watercolor tassel to spend in the center of each flower.
A simple procedure will take only a few minutes, but the result will be visible immediately.
Be sure to take into account that the balcony strawberry can not be wintering in the apartment. She needs a cold wintering. Perfect option - insulated balcony. There is enough light, and the temperature is low, but plus. Three winter months are a sufficient period so that the bushes rested and woke up again for rapid growth.
In the fall, when the fruiting has long been left behind, the leaves in the pot will begin to wither. First, their edges flush, and then redden all the leaves. As soon as they start to dry out, you need to take scissors and cut off the entire top completely.
Then the pots with roots are carried to the balcony. No need to forget about them. 1-2 times a month, the Earth should be watered so that the roots do not die from drought.
In the spring, when the air temperature on the street stops at night below +4 0 s, the pots can be returned back to the apartment and gradually begin to water more often. With the appearance of young leaves, go to the usual mode of feeding and irrigation.
The popularity of balcony strawberry varieties increases every year. Manufacturers in vain offer more and more interesting types. They are not only actively fruiting all summer, but also look so decorative that they are not inferior to other colors. Try to grow sweet and fragrant berries at home on the windowsill or balcony and make sure this pleasure is worth the effort and time.
Strawberries on the balcony - this is quite a real undertaking. Grow berries in the conditions of the city, having a small balcony, under the power of each who wants. Strawberry itself - the plant is unpretentious. If you observe simple rules and strictly follow technological recommendations, soon you will have a strawberry on the balcony all year round! Start with a small - a couple of bushes of plants will quite fit in order to try their strength. Be sure to take the bushes of different varieties - so you will quickly determine which berries to you to taste.
Strawberry is three species:
Is it possible to grow strawberries on the balcony and get a crop all year round? Of course! If you choose removable varieties, warm the balcony and provide decent care to the plant, you can enjoy fresh berries all year! Another advantage of these varieties is fruiting begins on the very first year after landing, while some other varieties will be froning only in a year.
Experts advise to pay attention to the removable strawberry variety "Queen Elizabeth", as the berries are large and there are quite a lot of them. In addition, this variety throws the mustache, which is favorable for fruiting. Another variety is "Bolero", although it does not produce a mustache, but perfectly fruits in "balcony conditions since May and ending with November.
If you collect the harvest all year round you will be difficult, choose early or, on the contrary, late varieties. For example, "Festival", "Roxana", "Beauty Zagor", "Rusranka", "Desnahanka", "Catherine Two" - very good and unpretentious varieties, with whom even newcomer will handle in gardening.
Create strawberry seedlings only in specialized points of sale and only after mandatory consultation with the seller! Do not buy strawberries on the market with hands - you can buy at all what you want.
As a pot under the seedlings of strawberries, you can use any capacity: either specialized boxes, or plastic containersor plastic pots. And you can generally take polyethylene bags. Experts claim that it is the bags that are the most suitable material For growing, as such conditions are approximate to natural. Dift bags in diameter 20 cm, and a length of 200 cm. In this case, the thickness of the film must be 0.3 mm. It is not worth too thickly "scatter" bags - no more than three bags per 1 sq m.
The soil in which you will grow strawberry seedlings are very important, since it requires a sublinous soil for these berries. Such a mixture is quite possible to make yourself - you need to mix ground - chernozem, peat, humid, sawdust and sand in the ratio of 10: 10: 10: 3: 1.
Mixing all components that are described above, you will get an excellent soil that is suitable for growing strawberries.
Loss of an earthy mixture in the containers that you have prepared for seedlings and fill it with such a useful solution: Corobyan (1 Art.), Copper (0.5 ppm), water (3 l.).
Now you exactly did everything so that your strawberries grow in the best conditions!
Do not land seedlings in that soil, where plants have already grew (flowers or vegetable crops - no matter).
This method will allow planting much more plants!
