Gooseberry is an amazing berry. Many people mistakenly think that it is very difficult to grow it on their site, but in fact, to get an excellent harvest, you just need to provide proper care in the spring. What it consists of, we will consider further.
Proper care of gooseberries in spring will ensure a good harvest, significantly increase the quality of the fruits and their size, and improve the characteristics in terms of storage and transportation. But if you do not provide the shrub with proper attention, it will turn into thickets and will, like a weed, only clog other plants.
Caring for gooseberries in spring is the timely removal of shelter, watering, loosening, mulching, feeding, pest control and pruning. Also, if necessary, a transplant can be carried out.
Taking shelter after winter
For the winter, gooseberries are covered by slightly bending the branches to the ground. Peat, dry leaves, humus, straw, needles, sawdust, tree bark, etc. can be used as a covering material.
In addition, from above it is necessary to wrap the shrub with agrofibre, film or roofing material. Be sure to bend the branches to the ground. You can fix them with hooks.
It is necessary to remove the shelter at the onset of the first heat. Otherwise, decay processes may begin. First, the film or agrofibre is removed, and the natural shelter is removed after a while, gradually.
Watering, loosening and mulching
The gooseberry has a fairly well developed root system, and it is because of this that many gardeners mistakenly believe that watering can either be reduced to a minimum, or not carried out at all.
If the winter was snowy, at first the gooseberry does not need watering, it has more than enough melt water. But after this procedure should become regular and it is especially important to shed the shrub well during the period of fruit formation. If this is not done, there may and will be a lot of berries, but they will all be small and sour.
It is also necessary to support the bush in the heat. On dry days, you need to water the bush at the root, loosen the soil and mulch. In the evening, it is good to fill in the aboveground part of the plant. If the leaves begin to dry out, this will affect the health of the entire plant.
Take note! A biennial plant should receive at least 20 liters of water per week.
Loosening in spring is of great importance for plant development. This simple procedure will provide access to the roots of moisture and air.
It is important not to loosen too deeply. Maximum 10 cm. Otherwise, the roots may be damaged.
Mulching gooseberry bushes in spring will help retain moisture, as well as nourish the plant with useful substances. It is good to use straw, sawdust, peat.
Top dressing gooseberries in spring
Spring fertilization is very important for gooseberries. They will help to form powerful shoots and improve the quality of the harvest, improve the taste and size of the fruit.
Gooseberries respond well to nitrogen. But you should not get carried away with it, otherwise you can achieve not a bountiful harvest, but only rough foliage.
You can use ready-made mineral complexes, or you can add nitrate or urea at the rate of 20 grams per square meter. You can also prepare a mixture of these substances by mixing them in equal proportions.
Fertilize gooseberries after removing the shelter, and then during the active growing season.
Pruning
To prevent the gooseberry from turning into an overgrown bush of thorns, pruning must be carried out regularly. It is a pity for gardeners to remove branches, but they cannot do without it. The procedure is carried out almost immediately after removing the shelter and raising the branches pressed to the ground.
Broken, damaged and old branches are removed first. If this is not done, the plant will direct all its forces not to the formation of fruits, but to maintaining its diseased or weakened part.
You can remove branches that have reached 3 years of age. The largest yield is given by a two-year gooseberry.
Treatment against diseases and pests
Gooseberries are not too susceptible to disease, and pests do not often infect it. But regular inspection and preventive maintenance should be carried out without fail.
In a special risk zone, bushes planted next to currants and raspberries. Pests and fungi (primarily spider mites, raspberry moths, weevils, aphids, etc.) can pass from them.
If a pest or larvae is found, the shoot must be cut off and burned, and the plant must be watered with a decoction of onion peel or sprayed with an infusion of laundry soap.
Of the diseases, anthracnose should be feared. It quickly destroys the plant, but it is also quite easy to identify it. After infection, the bush practically stops developing. Rust is also common on gooseberries. It mainly affects young leaves. To fight diseases, gooseberries should be sprayed with sulfur-containing preparations.
For prophylaxis, in the spring, you need to spray the bush with special preparations. Good results are given by Karbofos and Actellik. If there is a suspicion of infection or a diseased plant was found nearby, the treatment is repeated.
Transfer
Many plants are transplanted before winter, but the opposite should be done with gooseberries. Young shrub seedlings take root well in spring. And the soil contains such an amount of natural moisture that it is very difficult to create artificially with the help of irrigation.
The procedure is carried out almost immediately after the removal of the shelters. We must be in time before the buds have blossomed. Then the seedling will be able to put out a sufficient number of roots and normally take root in a new place.
The selected stalk should be shortened so that the aerial part is no more than 20-25 cm. Grease the cut point with garden pitch.
Care in different regions (Moscow region, Volga region, Siberia, Ural)
In the Moscow region, the procedures are the same as in the south of the country. They consist in watering every two weeks or more often if it is hot, in loosening, mulching and dressing.
In the Volga region, it is advisable to plant young seedlings not immediately into the ground, but into separate buckets or other containers and rearrange them in a greenhouse until they begin to take root, and when the weather is stable warm, move them to a permanent place in open ground.
In the Urals and Siberia, it is undesirable to carry out pruning in the spring and the shelter is removed gradually, only in the daytime, until the threat of frost has passed.
Care errors
If all the points that we stopped at in the article were completed, but the gooseberry did not give a good result, then it is quite possible that you made one of the most common mistakes:
- too late they removed the shelter. Then a greenhouse effect forms under it and the plant begins to rot; Subscribe to our channel in Yandex.Zen!
Succulent gooseberry belongs to the category of integral plants that are grown in domestic gardens. This berry can grow for more than 30 years under favorable conditions, and delight the owners with a bountiful harvest. But in order to achieve positive results in the cultivation of shrubs, you should carefully look after the plantings.
Place for planting gooseberries
The primary task of a gardener before planting a gooseberry is to carefully choose the optimal place on the site. The fertility of the plantings and their longevity will depend on this factor, and therefore it is impossible to be mistaken in this matter. So, when choosing a place for landing, the following criteria should be taken into account:
- The gooseberry is not very whimsical in the content, but it does not tolerate swampy soils. If the planting took place in such a place, the shrub will grow poorly, get sick much more often and, ultimately, die. For this reason, you should choose an area where groundwater flows at a distance of at least 1.5 m from the surface.
- Since gooseberries wake up early enough from dormancy and are distinguished by early flowering, when choosing a place, it is necessary to avoid lowlands, since cold air will accumulate in such areas. Try to locate the shrub in an area where it is completely sheltered from the cold winds.
- This culture is very demanding on lighting and cannot stand dark, thickened places. The plant does not die, however, the branches become thinner and bare on the bush, the berries become less and less, and they acquire small sizes. In addition, they stain worse and can ripen at different times.
Soil preparation
It is best to plant a gooseberry bush in soil that has undergone pre-planting preparation. This activity is quite laborious, but as a result, the owner will receive a healthy, fertile and long-term plant. Let us consider in more detail the stage-by-stage soil preparation in planting a berry plant:
- 2-3 years before planting the gooseberry, it is necessary to sow the predecessor plants into the soil. The best representatives are row crops, perennial grasses, and black fallow.
- After the predecessors complete their task and saturate the soil with the necessary substances, they must be removed.
- After harvesting, add glyphosate-containing gooseberry herbicides to the soil. Photos with norms and instructions, as a rule, are indicated on the packaging of the substance.
- When September comes, it will be necessary to cultivate the land 20-25 cm deep, walking along it with a general-purpose plow.
- Mineral and organic fertilizers are added to the freshly dug soil.
Gooseberry planting process
The most important aspect that affects the performance of planting gooseberries – this time of year. This berry can only be planted in spring or autumn. However, it should be borne in mind that in the first case, you should carefully track down the short interval between the thawing of the soil and the swelling of the kidneys, and it is quite difficult to determine it. Therefore, the optimal time for planting gooseberries is from the end of September to the beginning of October, since the bushes will have time to take root before the onset of frost.
Planting gooseberries should be done in the following sequence:
- Initially, inspect the seedlings: you need to remove sluggish or dried roots from them, and also cut off the tops of the branches. Leave no more than five buds on each shoot.
- Make planting holes up to 40 cm deep and up to 50 cm wide.
- For planting, biennial or annual shrubs are suitable, in which 3-4 developed branches are formed, and the roots are at least 15 cm in size.
- Then it is necessary to apply fertilizer to the trench to saturate the soil as much as possible. To do this, you can use the following material:
- organic matter - 10 kg (humus, fallen leaves, manure, etc. are suitable);
- wood ash - 100 g.
- Place the seedling in the groove, holding it so that the bush is positioned at a slight angle.
- The spacing between seedlings should be 1-3 meters, depending on the variety and size of the plants.
- Then fill the hole with soil and be sure to compact to avoid voids.
- Finally, water each shrub abundantly.
- it is advisable to plant the shrub 6-8 cm deeper than it grew in the nursery;
- if planting occurs on light soil, then it is necessary to deepen the seedling by 8-10 cm;
- after planting, the shrub should be watered at the rate of 10 liters per 5 bushes;
- in order to avoid freezing of seedlings, if they were laid in late autumn, it is necessary to carefully mulch the soil with a layer of manure, dry earth, peat or humus so that the mulch covers the soil by 10 cm;
- in early spring, it is necessary to break the plantings.
Gooseberry care
In early spring, before the buds begin to bloom, the aisles must be cultivated. This will keep moisture in the soil. You should also do manual weeding. And if the year turned out to be dry and precipitation is extremely rare, you need to repeat the cultivation during the season.
Gooseberry cultivation also includes fertilization. The most nutritious for this berry are substances of phosphorus and potassium content, which must be added to the soil in early autumn. In this case, it is worth adhering to the following terms:
- on heavy soils, fertilization is carried out every 3-4 years;
- on the lungs - 1-2 years after the first application.
Important! Nitrogen fertilizers should be applied annually, with the onset of spring.
Watering and pruning
This berry culture loves abundant watering. It is recommended to "water" gooseberries according to the following scheme:
- after the end of the flowering of the bush, during the period of fruit formation;
- 14 days before picking berries;
- immediately after harvest.
In this case, one should proceed from the rate of water consumption - 350 m3 / ha.
Shrub pruning is done either in the autumn after the leaves have fallen, or in the spring, until the buds have blossomed. In this case, it is important to adhere to some of the subtleties of the process:
- It is necessary to cut off those shrubs on which thickening shoots are seen. In doing so, it is important that old wireframe branches are replaced with new ones.
- The most valuable and fertile branches in the gooseberry are those that grow for 6-7 years. Shoots older than 8 years old have low yields and are pruned.
- It is necessary to cut the branch at the very base to make room for the new shoot to grow.
- Trimming the tops of the bush is not at all necessary, unless small and watery-tasting berries have begun to form on them.
- It is necessary to prune gooseberries once a year, otherwise, it will overgrow strongly, and the crop will be extremely poor quality. In addition, unkempt bushes begin to hurt, aphids, sawflies or fireflies fall on them, which will be problematic to remove.
Video instruction on pruning gooseberries is presented in the fragment:
Disease and pest control
- karbofos solution;
- special biological products;
- ash infusion at the rate of 1 kg of ash per 3 liters of liquid.
The treatment of the bush is carried out in the spring, however, if the pests have not left their habitat, it is necessary to re-spray after the gooseberry bloom.
Another problem of this berry is powdery mildew, a disease in which gray spots appear on the shoots and foliage. To get rid of this ailment, you can spray the bush with such preparations:
- iron vitriol at the rate of 3 g / 1 l of water;
- sodium bicarbonate solution at the rate of 5 g / 1 l of water.
The plant is processed immediately after the first signs of the disease appear.
Harvest
The fruit ripening period lasts from 30 to 35 days. At the same time, harvesting can be at different degrees of maturity, depending on what they are needed for. For example, for squeezing juice, jam, jelly, etc., the fruits should be a little unripe.
For fresh berries, the harvest takes place when the fruits acquire the color appropriate for the variety, but a little hard, since during the transportation the berries will overripe and lose their taste.
It is best to harvest gooseberries in cool and dry weather, using a shallow container. The collected fruits cannot be poured from one container to another, since they easily wrinkle and let the juice out. It is best to store the berries in the refrigerator, where they mature naturally within 6-8 days.
Gooseberry is a berry that many of us have known since childhood. It has many vitamins and minerals, and is juicy and tasty. Some people prefer to cook gooseberry jam, which on cold winter days pleases with an unusual taste and aroma. The gooseberry bush itself is a long-liver, because with proper care it can give a bountiful harvest for more than 20 years. There are cases when the gooseberry bore fruit for about 40 years. Of course, such a result requires a lot of effort. In this article, we will look at the features of caring for gooseberry in spring.
Spring gooseberry care, disease control Gooseberry care: where to start?
Gooseberry: spring care advice from seasoned gardeners In the spring, as soon as the frosts pass and the weather is stable, you can start preparing the gooseberries for fruiting. To do this, follow these steps:
Plentiful spring watering is also important. they love water and if spring does not pamper with good rainfall, then it is necessary to organize regular watering for the bush, since the gooseberry spends a lot of energy on survival in adverse conditions. Watering is carried out correctly at the root, so as not to provoke the occurrence of powdery mildew.
As you can see, caring for gooseberries in spring is simple and does not require much time and effort. The main thing is to pay a little attention to the bush and after a while it will delight you with a bountiful harvest.
- How to plant actinidia kolomikt in a summer cottage? ...
In order to get a rich harvest of berries in the garden, you need to start gooseberry care from early spring. He wakes up one of the very first in the garden. Already at zero temperature, the gooseberry bush begins to grow, and at 10-15 ° C it fully grows. The only thing that can cause irreparable harm to it is spring frosts. Therefore, during this period, in order to preserve the buds, it is best to temporarily cover the bush. Flowering can begin at temperatures as low as 7 ° C. This usually happens in mid-May. Therefore, all spring work with gooseberries is best done as soon as the snow begins to melt. As a rule, this is the beginning of April.
2. Diseases of the gooseberry. Treatment methods
Spheroteka (American Powdery Mildew)
Most of all, gooseberries are susceptible to infection by the American mealy race, or it is also called the spheroteca. But Russian breeders have developed a number of varieties that are more than resistant to this disease.
These include the following varieties:
Commander
Ural grapes
Krasnoslavyansky
Plum studless
Ural besshorny
Northern captain
Leningrader
American powdery mildew (spheroteka) manifests itself as follows. It affects the leaves and fruits with a kind of cobweb, which over time transforms into dense brown spots. They are especially noticeable on fruits. Due to the disease, the berries do not ripen and fall off. The growth of the bush slows down, and the leaves are deformed and dry out.
The most dangerous time for infection is warm and rainy weather.
In order to avoid infection with American powdery mildew, it is necessary to pour a bucket of boiling water over the entire bush in early spring, when the buds have not yet formed (approximately the beginning of April). Thus, you can destroy the fungus of this disease in the initial stage. Our grandfathers and grandmothers carried out this procedure with their shrubs, thanks to which they always had a rich harvest. But in no case should you treat the bushes on which buds have already tied in this way, hot water can ruin them.
There are also more modern methods of treating powdery mildew:
Treat the gooseberry bush with copper or iron vitriol, first diluting it in water. The required dosages should be seen in the instructions. It is necessary to carry out the treatment in early spring before the formation of buds.
300 grams of onion husks are soaked in 10 liters of boiling water for 2 days. Then the bush is completely and abundantly treated. This procedure should be carried out before flowering.
70 grams of ammonium nitrate is diluted in 10 liters of warm water. Then the bush is completely and abundantly treated. This procedure should be carried out after flowering with an interval of 2 weeks.
In the same way, you can get rid of most of the diseases that gooseberries are susceptible to. These include:
Anthracnose
Gray rot
White leaf spot (septoriasis)
By following simple rules, you can avoid most of the gooseberry diseases... To do this, in the fall, burn all the fallen leaves, cut off heavily infested shoots and regularly loosen the ground around the bush.
3. Pruning gooseberries in spring
The best time for gooseberry trimmings is early spring. All dry shoots are cut first. Then they cut off all the processes directed into the depths of the bush. And only after that you can cut out healthy branches.
It is important to know that only branches that are from 2 to 5 years old bear fruit. Therefore, all old shoots are cut out, and the rest are left in 4-5 pieces, each year. As for the shoots of the first year, they can be left 2 times more, in case the gooseberries freeze in winter or become infected with diseases. Gooseberry pruning it is recommended to start from the third year after planting.
4. Top dressing of gooseberries in spring
If a young gooseberry bush was planted with the addition of dressings in the pit, it is worth adding nutrients only in the third year of life. Since the oversaturation of some elements can adversely affect the development of the plant.
Start off gooseberry feeding follows in the spring, immediately after the snow melts. This is due to the early waking up of the gooseberry vegetative system.
Ammonium nitrate or urea are considered the best spring fertilizers, they help the green mass of the plant to develop and contribute to a healthier development of the bush. You can read more about fertilizers in the article Mineral fertilizers for plants. You can replace nitrogen-containing fertilizers with organic ones, using compost, green manure (more details in the article Green manure) or liquid manure (diluted with water).
Potash and phosphate fertilizers will also be helpful. It is also worth bringing them in in the spring. You can replace them with an organic fertilizer such as a woody hall.
Potatoes or their tops can serve as a very good natural fertilizer, because gooseberry bushes react very responsively to it and can be used at any period of growth.
When a summer resident gardener decides to start breeding gooseberries, many questions arise that need to be studied (where and how to plant, which insects to protect from, how and when to cut). The most important issue is the care and cultivation of gooseberries.
The primary task for the gardener is to choose a suitable place for planting young gooseberry shoots. This plant is very fond of a lot of light, so it should be planted in an open area, away from tall trees.
Best of all, gooseberry bushes in the soil in late September - early October. This is done in order to adapt to a new place before the onset of frost. In early spring, a young shrub can use the full potential of nutrients and soil moisture reserves. By the fall, with proper care for the gooseberry, the bush will noticeably grow.
Autumn planting is more related to the Western European varieties of Grossularia reclinata (Z) Mill (Warsaw, Industry, Brazilian, bottle, Seanets Murera, green). They differ in average height. Buds in these varieties wake up early (April 3-20), when the air temperature does not exceed 10 0 C. In appearance, the fruits are large, the leaves are small, the bushes are small.
In order to provide the plant with proper care, it is necessary to have information about some of the principles and features of the development of fruit and berry crops.
Care Tips:
Using the baggage of knowledge about the principles of caring for gooseberries, you can get the desired result within two to three years after planting.
Spring care for gooseberries
An important point in caring for gooseberries in spring is the timely introduction of fertilizers into the soil. When, what and how much fertilizer should be applied depends entirely on the type and condition of the soil on the farmstead.
If the soil is depleted, it must be applied once a year. For moderately fertile soils, it is enough to apply fertilizer once every two years. For good fertile soil - once every three years.
Phosphorous and are introduced in two steps. The first procedure is carried out in early spring, and the second after harvest.
A very important point is the introduction of potash fertilizer in the spring. An excellent organic source of potassium -. This is not only a fertilizer, but also an excellent remedy in the fight against various insect pests and protection against powdery mildew.
How to take care of it properly?
Every gardener wants to get a big harvest every year from a plant planted with his own hands. To ensure a positive result, you need to know how to properly care for gooseberries.
Achieve high rates of gooseberry fruiting is possible only in the case of timely pruning of the bushes. There are a number of ways to prune gooseberry shoots, which not only allow you to get a large harvest, but also give the bush a decorative shape.
The classic way is. By this time, the bush has grown annual shoots. The gardener should select about 5 of the strongest and strongest branches. It is desirable that they diverge in different directions and be at a distance from each other. All other shoots should be removed with pruning shears as low as possible, approximately at the level of the soil (it is not recommended to leave branch "hemp").
With the appearance of new strong shoots, all weak ones and those that lie on the ground are removed annually. This process will allow already in the fifth year of the plant's life to get a properly formed bush with branches of different ages, which contributes to high yields.
Gooseberry pruning rules - video
The “Stlanets” method is used in harsh climatic conditions or for growing varieties that do not like cold weather. When using it, you should not expect a large harvest, since the bush must be cut so that no more than 2-4 shoots remain on it. In addition, branches should be allowed in width, not growth.
Method of forming a bush "One-shoulder cordon". This is essentially one shoot, which is overgrown with side branches. The yield, when using this method, is small.
The method of forming a bush "Two-shouldered cordon". Represents the growth of two shoots from the same root system. The branches are arranged horizontally. Already from them vertical shoots grow. The yield of this method is quite large. Thanks to this method, gooseberry bushes can be planted in a small area, near walls or fences. It is very difficult to form a bush in this way, but if it works, the effort will be worth it.
The tapestry method has several interpretations. This is the best option for planting gooseberries, both from the point of view of yield and from a decorative point of view. Plants are planted opposite each other in two strips, at least one and a half meters between the bushes. Thus, two rows are formed. The "trellis" method can be used in small suburban areas with a limited area.
An important point in caring for gooseberries after harvest is pruning old shoots and preparing for the winter period.
How to properly care for gooseberries (video)