Can You Use Fertilizer When Planting Strawberries?
Soil preparation should be thorough when the home gardener grows their own fruit and, if necessary, started a year or two in advance of planting, particularly if perennial weeds must be eliminated and the soil improved. When stable manure is not available, turning under a heavy growth of clover or alfalfa is an excellent preparation for the berry plantation. In well-managed gardens, where crops have been grown regularly and the soil maintained in a high state of fertility, no special soil improvement is necessary before planting berries.
Early planting is essential if the plants are to get off to a good start. The soil should be fitted as soon as dry enough, and the plants set immediately while the weather is cool and the soil moist. Late plantings often encounter hot dry weather and fail or do poorly the first season. A properly-set plant is as deep in the soil as it grew in the nursery and firm enough to resist a strong tug.
Fertilizers should not be used at planting time and preferably not the first year with the cane fruits. On soils of low fertility, a light application may be used after the plants are well established, but in view of the tendency of amateurs to use too much, only light applications should be made. The strawberry ground may be fertilized at planting time with a complete fertilizer, 10-10-10 or a similar formula, at the rate of one pound to 100 square feet.
Summer care of the strawberries consists of regular cultivation and hoeing, spacing the runners about six inches apart and removing the surplus after the row is filled out to a width of 18 inches. The ever-bearing strawberries sometimes perform much better if mulched with sawdust.
The brambles, currants, gooseberries and blueberries may be mulched. Sawdust is an especially good mulch for blueberries. Cultivation, if practiced, should be shallow. Nitrogen is most apt to be the best fertilizer. For the blueberries sulfate of amtnonia is best, but ammonium nitrate may be used, and is suitable for the other fruits. In small gardens complete fertilizers will do very well for most fruits.
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