Hello, dear summer residents and gardeners! Although today’s article will be of interest to those who are far from cultivating the land, but still grow flowers on the windowsill. That is, hello EVERYONE!
I don’t believe that there is even one among you who doesn’t like wild strawberries. But in winter you especially want it: it’s snowing outside, it’s white and white, and there are bright red juicy berries on the table, especially if it’s a New Year’s table! Of course, you can buy it, fortunately there is an abundance in supermarkets these days. But this berry will be completely tasteless - a pale shadow of summer pleasure. Yes, and it will cost a lot.
But why spend money? Growing strawberries on the windowsill all year round is not only possible, but also simple, even for novice plant growers. Get additional lighting, for example, phytolamps (inexpensive and accessible), free up space on the south or south-east windowsill, and go ahead, let's choose varieties!
Choosing a variety
Naturally, only repairable ones are suitable for us. Why? Regular varieties of strawberries bear fruit only once a year. The remontant variety can continuously produce berries for almost 10 months in a row, depending on the variety. Argument?
Now let's decide which varieties are more suitable for growing in an apartment. I propose to focus on those that perfectly lay new buds in neutral daylight hours (NSD varieties). For them, neither the time of day, nor the season, nor even the weather plays any role. And they can bear fruit literally for a whole year continuously. It goes without saying that such plants deplete faster, that is, their lifespan, as a rule, does not exceed two years.
Personally, I would recommend the Queen Elizabeth II variety. But there is an alternative: Queen Elizabeth, Roman F1, Tristan, Brighton, and many others.
When to sow strawberries for seedlings?
Once you have the seeds in your pocket, you can start sowing. Planting of remontant strawberries, in fact, can last from early February to August. But the sooner you do this, the more likely it is that fruiting will be achieved in the first year of the growing season. Therefore, the optimal planting time is February-March. Remember that seedlings of remontant strawberries “swing” for a long time and, if the seeds are planted in March, the first berries will appear only in July-August. However, there is no need to be sad about this! Remontant strawberries are not annual, their lifespan is 2-3 years. Therefore, in the second year of the growing season, the overgrown bushes will give you lush flowering at the end of spring and you will be able to collect berries right up to frost.
Ampelous remontant strawberries will decorate the balcony no worse than decorative flowers
Saplings or seeds?
Whatever variety you choose, I strongly advise against buying seedlings on the market. The guarantee that it will be the right variety is very small. Do this, for example, in specialized stores - yes, it’s more expensive, but you can have no doubt about the purchase.
By the way, an excellent option, and you can save money, is to purchase strawberry seeds. So you can even become the happy owner of some rare or especially valuable varieties for relatively little money. Of course, growing strawberries from seeds will require some extra effort on your part, but it’s not particularly difficult.
Some people prefer to germinate them in peat tablets and praise this method, but we recommend that you refer to our materials on this topic. “When to plant strawberry seeds for seedlings” is always at your disposal on our website.
Another advantage of this particular method is that since we plan to grow strawberries at home, that is, in an apartment or other living space, we do not have to gradually adapt the seedlings to open ground.
If you want to use seedlings from your garden, then before planting in a pot they must be sprinkled with earth and placed in a cool and dark place for two whole weeks. Adaptation, so to speak. But they also feel great on the windowsill.
How to plant strawberries
Pots with plants are placed on the illuminated side of the apartment to save on lighting during the day. The berries will ripen on the balcony if it is insulated.
You can grow strawberries at home in five steps:
- Prepare planting material.
- Plant/sow, wait for germination.
- Replant in time.
- Wait for the harvest.
- Collect it and eat it.
Landing is not difficult, but you will have to tinker in between. There are three ways to grow strawberries at home:
- From seeds.
- Rooted mustache.
- Replanting a garden bush.
Method 1
You can sow strawberry seeds from February after preparation. Sprinkle the seeds onto a damp cloth, wrap, place in a plastic bag and place on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator. After two weeks, take them out and dry them.
Further work order:
- Fill the container with soil no higher than 5 cm.
- Form and compact grooves 0.5 cm deep.
- Moisten the soil with a spray bottle.
- Sow the seeds in the furrows, covering them with little soil.
- Cover the container with film.
- Place in a dark, cool place with a temperature of up to +18 C° until seedlings emerge.
- Check the soil moisture a couple of times a week.
When shoots appear, place the container in a bright place. You need to water the bushes very carefully; to do this, use a syringe without a needle.
Method 2
You need to take care of planting material in the summer. When the strawberries begin to form whiskers, fill disposable liter cups with soil. It is better to use purchased soil, and dilute garden soil with sand 1:1.
- Bury the cups completely into the ground next to the mother bushes, leaving the edges 1 cm above the soil.
- Direct the first rosette on the mustache into the cup and pin it.
- Water once a day, preferably in the evening.
- After three weeks, cut off the strawberry bush from the mother bush.
- Continue to water deeply.
- Carefully break out the flower stalks so that the bush gains strength.
- Leave until the first frost.
Dig up the cups, bring them home and spill them with a slightly pink solution of potassium permanganate. Place in the cold for three days (up to 10°C). Move the strawberries to a permanent place.
Method 3
Before frost, dig up young, rooted bushes from the garden bed. Remove damaged and dried leaves. There should be 2-3 leaves left.
Planting in the ground:
- Dilute a weak solution of potassium permanganate.
- Spread the roots and place the bush in a glass with the solution for 2 hours.
- Transplant into a container with a volume of at least 1 liter.
For the first 3-5 days, keep the plants in a cool, dark room, then move them to a light room. On a south window, the plant needs lighting only in the morning, evening and on cloudy days.
Place and container for landing
We’ve decided on the variety, we’ve grown the seedlings, purchased them or dug them up, and it’s time to plant them.
Firstly, the location. The south or south-east side is ideal - the sun shines here for as long as possible. However, in winter you will still have to resort to additional lighting - the daylight hours are very short. The most ordinary phytolamp will be quite enough. A sodium lamp would be absolutely perfect!
Secondly, you need to choose a seat. Whether you grow a single bush in pots, or in containers for flowers, like those that hang on many people’s balconies, you should take one thing into account: one bush requires a volume of 3 liters. That is, in a standard container you can plant up to 5 pieces of strawberries, each at a distance of about 15-20 cm from each other.
Be that as it may, there must also be drainage holes and a considerable layer of drainage: expanded clay, small crushed stone or broken brick - your choice.
Can strawberries be grown in pots?
The depth of the strawberry root system is small, which makes it possible to place the crop in a pot. Outside, you can plant any favorite variety in a container. The main thing is to choose a container of comfortable sizes for it, suitable soil and a sufficiently lit place .
If you want not only to get delicious berries grown in a pot, but also to make a decorative element out of the planting, then you should give preference to remontant hanging varieties of strawberries. Some of them look very decorative, bloom for a long time and, among other things, produce good harvests.
To grow at home, you need to choose day-neutral varieties. This will allow you to get sweet berries all year round.
Important! 100 g of strawberries contain 98% of the daily requirement of vitamin C. Thanks to its composition of nutrients, this sweet berry reduces the level
“
bad
”
cholesterol in the blood and improves cardiovascular activity.
Planting and care
Growing strawberries does not require any special soil mixture. Firstly, you can limit yourself to just a universally purchased flower mixture. Secondly, you can make it yourself: soil, for example forest soil, humus, peat and sand - mix all this in proportions 2: 2: 1: 1 and an excellent “handsmade” soil mixture is ready.
As in the garden, fertilizers and fertilizing will not be superfluous. It is better to fertilize with complex mineral or organic fertilizers. It is necessary to feed, especially during the flowering and fruiting period. Do this approximately once every 2 weeks.
No special care is required either. The most important thing here, perhaps, is watering. Strawberries love moisture, so the soil should not dry out. At the same time, make sure that there is no excess moisture.
Watering and fertilizing
Strawberries should be watered regularly; the soil should be moist but crumbly. The air in apartments is dry, so containers with water are placed near the plants. Periodically spray water around the plants from a spray bottle.
Strawberries need feeding. In the first weeks, she will have enough nutrients from the soil. After a month, the plants must be fertilized with any complex preparation for strawberries. The first feeding is carried out when the buds appear, the second - after picking the berries, the subsequent ones - once a month. Follow the dosage indicated on the fertilizer bag.
Self-tested
So that you have no doubt that growing strawberries, or strawberries, as you please, with your own hands at home is easy, I will share with you my personal experience.
Despite the fact that it is recommended to plant plants in March-April, I did it in July - it just so happened. Around day 10-11, new leaves began to appear - a sure sign of successful rooting. An important point - I planted a bush dug up at the dacha.
So, the new leaves were noticeably different from the old ones - they were shorter. Then the old ones began to slowly die off.
Exactly a month later the first flower stalk appeared. Please note that it is recommended to remove the first flower stalks of young plants - this way you ensure more abundant further flowering. I did not do this, since my plant in the open ground was already producing fruit.
Another week later, a second peduncle appeared, and after 15 days the first flowers had already faded. There is also an important point here. It is believed that indoors you need to pollinate flowers yourself: simply collect pollen with a soft brush. To be honest, I completely forgot about it. However, this did not stop the first berries from forming on my potted strawberries.
As they ripened, I had to support the fruits and their stems so that they would not simply break under the weight of the berries. Here you can use foam rubber and even an ordinary sponge. By the way, this is an argument in favor of ampelous strawberries.
And now, exactly 2 months later, I was already reaping the first fruits, enjoying the taste of homemade strawberries. New flower stalks kept appearing and appearing, with an interval of about once every 2 weeks.
Preparing the pot, soil and planting material
Regular flower pots, cache-pots or oblong-shaped plastic containers are well suited for growing this sweet berry. To save money, you can use mayonnaise buckets as a planting container, as well as 5-liter plastic bottles, the top of which is first cut off. Such pots can be decorated to your taste - painted, pasted on patterns of beads, shells and other materials suitable for decoration. The dimensions of the planting container can be different and depend, first of all, on the amount of planting material. A suitable volume is considered to be 3–10 liters.
Containers for planting must have holes to drain excess liquid.
If they are not there, then you need to make the holes yourself. The roots of the plant go 25–30 cm deep into the soil. Therefore, containers for planting should be slightly larger in height than the specified dimensions. It is advisable to choose a pot of light colors, since a dark color attracts the rays of the sun, and the lower part may become excessively hot.
In winter...
The last thing that is probably worth talking about is winter. Naturally, due to temperature conditions, watering will need to be reduced somewhat. But I think you will notice this yourself. The most important thing here is lighting. Using lamps, it is necessary to increase daylight hours to at least 12 hours.
That, in fact, is all science is. As you can see, there is nothing complicated, and, in fact, there is no difference from caring for flowers on the windowsill. By the way, if you stick to ampelous strawberries, they won’t look any worse. In this regard, I will take the liberty of recommending the Geneva variety to you. I am sure that everything will work out for you, and even in the most severe frosts, you will be able, sitting at home, to enjoy the sunny berries grown with your own hands.
Maxim Kolesnichenko
Which seeds are best to choose?
Strawberries are not small elongated berries, similar to wild ones. Almost everything that grows in our gardens and on an industrial scale bears this name.
The following varieties are suitable for growing strawberries on a windowsill from seeds:
- Murano;
- Furor;
- Monterey;
- Albion;
- San Andreas;
- Vivara;
- Regina;
- Alexandrina.
From a mustache or a bush - you can try any remontant varieties, for example, Aisha and Albion showed themselves very well.
Advantages and disadvantages
Growing strawberries in pots is not difficult, but you need to follow certain care rules when ensuring this process.
Growing strawberries in pots has its advantages:
- flowerpots with crops can act as decoration; due to the flowing vines, strawberries are used for vertical gardening;
- flowerpots can be placed in any corner of the garden plot, saving space for a garden bed, and it is convenient to use multi-level stands;
- pots can be moved from one place to another;
- it’s easy to prevent flooding if it suddenly rains heavily by placing the strawberries under a canopy, or to provide protection from the scorching rays of the sun;
- the berries do not come into contact with the ground, the risk of infection is reduced, and the percentage of losses is reduced;
- the harvest can be harvested at any time of the year if strawberries are grown in pots indoors;
- it is convenient to harvest, the pot can be placed in an accessible place and rotated as needed;
- it is possible to create ideal growing conditions.
But gardeners do not recommend being fascinated by this method. It is imperfect, there are shortcomings:
- significant expenses - you will have to buy containers and other devices for growing berries in an apartment;
- the variety must be chosen carefully; not all varieties are suitable for vertical gardening; some are capable of bearing fruit only in open ground;
- high labor costs. First, the plant must be planted, and then the soil must be regularly loosened, watered and fertilized. Keep in mind that when planting this way, the soil depletes and dries out faster.
Growing strawberries in pots will be successful if the gardener follows the key recommendations. The main requirements are discussed in the following video.
Wintering remontant strawberries
As already mentioned, remontant strawberries do not die after the first year of life. If optimal conditions for wintering are created for it, it will begin to bear fruit next spring.
Leaving strawberries to winter in an apartment is not the best option. On a dry, warm windowsill, the plant will begin to hurt, and there is a high probability that it will catch spider mites. Wintering strawberries should be cool! It is optimal if you take the bushes out to a glazed balcony (insulated, where the temperature in winter does not drop below 0°C) or to a window in the entrance as early as November. Water it moderately, only after the soil has dried out two phalanges of your finger; there is no need to feed it. In the spring, strawberries will produce new shoots, begin to develop intensively and produce new leaves. The first berries after a cold winter appear in May-June.
