Strawberry Kama: variety description and characteristics, cultivation and care with photo

Garden strawberry or strawberry is a delicious, fragrant summer berry. Breeders have bred many varieties, one of them is a strawberry called Kama. It has excellent taste qualities, thanks to which it is in high demand in the market. Information about the characteristics of this strawberry, as well as how to grow it and how to care for it, is given below.

Description and characteristics

Kama strawberries are grown by Polish breeders. They crossed 2 varieties: Cavalier and Zenga Zengana, resulting in a berry with a rich aroma, versatile in use.It can be consumed both fresh and canned, as well as used for long-term transportation.

Kama strawberry description:

• plant is low, compact;
• leaves are rich green in color, their lower part is slightly pubescent;
• roots branched, powerful;
• cone-shaped fruits, their weight is 20-30 grams;
• berry color varies from red to burgundy;
• pulp is dense.

Strawberries begin to bear fruit at the end of May. The harvest continues until the end of June. With proper care from the bush, the gardener can remove up to 1 kilogram of berries. The largest ones grow at the beginning of the season, then they get smaller.

Pay attention! A distinctive feature of the Kama strawberry is that its pulp in a state of technical ripeness is dense, the taste is sweet, with a slight sourness.

Pros and cons

The virtues include the following qualities of strawberries:

• high yield;
• early ripening;
• duration of fruiting;
• strong strawberry flavor and aroma;
• good transportability;
• drought tolerance;
• remontant variety.

The pluses include the possibility of growing strawberries of the Kama variety in greenhouse conditions. When grown indoors, the berries ripen by mid-spring. The disadvantages include the low location of the berries, as a result of which they can get dirty with the ground. In addition, the bushes require a large feeding area, as well as shelter with agrofibre during return frosts in the spring.

How to grow

All stages of growing strawberries are important: from acquiring seedlings to caring for bushes after picking berries. The harvest not only in the current year, but also in the next season depends on this.

How to choose seedlings

It is necessary to purchase seedlings of garden strawberries from trusted sellers, as they value their reputation and therefore sell quality goods. When buying, pay attention to the following factors:

• shrubs should have springy leaves, without any points on them;
• high-quality seedlings have leafy plates of a rich green color, with pubescence from below;
• if seedlings are sold in a peat pot, roots should be visible from it: this means that the bushes are grown in it, and not transplanted before selling;
• if seedlings are sold with open roots, then their length should be at least 7-8 centimeters.

Important! It is necessary to purchase strawberry seedlings from trusted producers or distributors.

Place and timing of disembarkation

The best time to purchase seedlings is spring. It is sold both in containers and with an open root system. The earlier strawberries are planted on the site, the earlier the gardener will harvest. If for some reason the seedlings are not planted in the spring, this can be done in early autumn. Strawberries should have time to take root before stable frosts.

The landing site should be well lit by sunlight, without shading. So that strawberries do not become infected with fungal diseases, it is necessary to choose its predecessors correctly. They should be plants of the cruciferous or legume family. It is undesirable to plant it after tomato, potato, eggplant, as well as Jerusalem artichoke and sunflower, which deplete the soil too much.

Plant pattern

To ensure that each bush has enough space for growth and development, seedlings are planted according to the following scheme:

• distance between bushes in a row - 40-50 centimeters;
• distance between rows - 60-80 centimeters.

It is not recommended to thicken the plantings, as the bushes grow strongly and require a large feeding area. The soil for strawberries is selected loose, moisture-intensive, breathable. It should be neutral or slightly acidic in pH. Before planting, the roots of seedlings for disinfection must be dipped for 10 minutes in a solution of low concentration potassium permanganate.

How to properly care for a crop

Kama variety strawberry is unpretentious and easy to care for. To grow a good crop, you must adhere to certain rules.

Irrigation and fertilization

After planting, seedlings must be watered every day for better survival. Then moisturizing is done as needed. After each watering, the soil must be loosened to prevent the formation of a crust. If the bushes are mulched, frequent watering will not be required.

If the seedlings are planted in the spring, then after 2 weeks the bushes can be fertilized with organic infusion by dissolving 30 grams of superphosphate and a handful of wood ash in 10 liters of water. The next top dressing is needed for strawberries during the appearance of peduncles and the first ovaries. For this, mullein is taken, which is diluted in a ratio of 1:6, or bird manure, which must be diluted even more: 1:20.

Feeding can be done not only root, but also foliar. To do this, you can take, for example, fermented nettle infusion. At the end of summer, the bushes are fertilized with an infusion of superphosphate with wood ash. It is important that mineral fertilizers do not contain chlorine, which will adversely affect the development of plants.

Advice! Before fertilizing, the ground must be shed with water to prevent burns to the root system.

Loosening and weeding

It is necessary to loosen the soil around garden strawberries after each watering or rainfall.This is important to produce for the reason that if the earth is covered with a crust for a long time, the plants will receive less oxygen, which will stop their growth and development. No less important is such an agricultural technique as weeding weeds, which prevent the penetration of sunlight to garden strawberries.

Mulching

When spring planting, strawberry bushes are mulched with chopped straw at the end of May. This must be done for the following reasons:

• to maintain optimal temperature and moisture in the soil;
• to prevent contamination of berries;
• to feed the roots with organic matter due to the rotting of straw.

Mulch keeps the soil from overheating in summer and from freezing in winter. In addition to straw, you can use sawdust, peat, burlap.

Trimming mustaches and leaves

A gardener can count on a big harvest only with regular removal of mustaches. They take away from the plant a lot of the forces it needs to form large berries. For the same reason, it is necessary to remove old leaves from the bushes. Removing unnecessary parts is done with sharp scissors. If the procedure is carried out manually, then you can accidentally damage the root system of garden strawberries.

Pay attention! Mulching the soil will prevent the mustache from clinging tightly to it and starting to develop.

Diseases, pests and methods of dealing with them

All above ground parts of Kama strawberries can be affected by rot. This is due to the fact that during flowering, the spores of the fungus present in the soil penetrate into the fruit bed along with pollen. To save the bushes you need:

• spray them with copper preparations at the beginning of the season;
• following treatment with fungicides during the period of active leaf growth;
• then, once every 10 days, the ground parts are sprayed with a solution of iodine (10 milliliters per 1 bucket of water).

Strawberry Kama is a tasty plant for pests such as strawberry mites and weevil. To prevent their occurrence, it is necessary to mow the bushes (at least two years old) after harvesting. They are carefully removed from the site and destroyed. By autumn, young, pest-free leaves will have time to grow.

Propagation of strawberry Kama

In practice, gardeners use 2 methods of reproduction: by mustache and by dividing the bush. They start breeding strawberries with a mustache in July. By this time, they have time to form well. 5 shoots are left on the mother plant, each of which should have no more than 3 rosettes. The largest and most developed mustache of the first order.

When the mustache begins to take root, they are sprinkled with earth. It is not necessary to separate from the mother plant, because through it the children receive additional nutrition. In order not to injure the seedlings by digging and transplanting, the whiskers can be sent to small individual containers. Young plants are fully formed and ready for planting in 2-2.5 months.

Even one way to propagate Kama strawberries is by dividing the bush. For this, plants of the age of 3 years are taken: a large bush is dug up, which is then divided into small horns. There can be from 6 to 20 of them on one plantation. Delenki are planted in August, by winter they have time to take root well.

Collecting and storing garden strawberries

Before harvesting, the bushes stop watering abundantly. This is necessary so that the berries are not watery, and can lie in the assembled form for more than 1-2 days.Fruits are removed with a stalk, with which they will be stored much longer than without it. Harvest in the morning, after the dew subsides, or in the evening, when the sun's rays are no longer so scorching.

Kama strawberry is special because it has dense berries that do not choke during transportation. Therefore, it can be successfully transported, as well as stored for a long time. To do this, the berries are placed in boxes lined with paper. The fruits must be without damage and dents. It is not necessary to wash them before storage.

Pay attention! Garden strawberries do not ripen after picking.

Strawberry Kama has a unique strawberry aroma and taste, for which both gardeners and gourmets fell in love with it. In addition, the housewives dry it, freeze it, cook compotes, jams, jams from it. In addition, strawberries contain a large amount of useful substances with which it can supply the body throughout the year.

Recommended