Gooseberry care: how to plant and grow in order to have a good harvest

Berry bushes are bred not only by summer residents, crops are grown on an industrial basis to obtain fruits rich in vitamins and organic acids. At the beginning of the last century, huge areas were occupied by gooseberries, but the number of plantations began to decrease sharply, the plants began to die from the sphere library caused by microscopic fungi. And although now varieties have been created that are immune to powdery mildew, caring for gooseberry bushes has its own characteristics. Given certain requirements, it is possible to harvest for 10-15 years.

How to plant and grow gooseberries in the garden

Fruit shrubs quickly take root, the next year the ovary is laid, the berries ripen, but in order to have a lot of them, you need to choose a variety adapted to specific climate conditions.

Scheme and timing of planting gooseberries

The place for fruit bushes is taken away at dachas and personal plots, where the cultivation of the land is done not by a tractor, but by hand. The distance that is made between gooseberry bushes is affected by the number of shoots that are left during formation. Powerful plants with a large number of branches are planted every 1.6-2 m. If the interval in the row is 70 cm, the bushes are cut more often, no more than 3 new shoots are left every year.

In the middle latitudes in autumn, gooseberries are planted not in September, but in October. By winter, the young plant will have time to take root, accumulate useful substances, and in the spring it will begin to develop.

Choosing the best location

Gooseberry loves the sun, grows in partial shade, but in this case it does not please with a good harvest. The shrub feels comfortable on chernozems and loams with neutral acidity, does not tolerate:

• podzolic soil;
• heavy soil;
• sand.

It is desirable to cover seedlings from dry wind. Young bushes do not withstand cold winds.

Preparation of soil and planting pit

To remove weeds, the area selected for gooseberries is sprayed with herbicides. To improve the structure of the earth, green manure is sown in advance in the form of mustard or cereals. When digging the soil, humus is introduced, and garden lime is used to reduce acidity. To destroy the mycelium of fungi, pest larvae, the soil is treated with insecticides and drugs that kill the infection.

To plant gooseberries, in autumn, a hole 40 x 40 long and wide is dug to a depth of 40 cm. Ash and half a kilogram of mineral fertilizers are poured into it, thoroughly mixing with the soil.

To prevent pests that can destroy the roots of a plant, organic matter is used if gooseberries are planted in spring. But in this period, you need to have time to carry out the procedure until the kidneys wake up, but the earth must thaw. Branches are cut in autumn, cuttings 20 cm long are harvested.

Technology of planting and rooting young seedlings

In spring, shoots are placed in the garden using a slightly different scheme than for adult bushes. Having loosened the soil fertilized before the onset of winter, the cuttings are placed at an angle of 45 ° every 20 cm. The earth is compacted and covered with peat or humus with a layer of at least 50 mm. Even among summer residents who do not know how to plant gooseberries, young shoots take root normally and do not freeze if snow suddenly falls. After warming, the soil is loosened, the cuttings are carefully deepened.

In recent years, planting gooseberries in open ground even in summer has become quite possible.Young bushes are packed in cardboard boxes or in plastic tubes along with the ground. When buying such a container, you need to pay attention to how the soil lump separates. If it is easy to pull it out, you should not buy a seedling, because it has weak roots, and such a bush will not survive moving into the ground at high temperatures.

The procedure for transplanting currants from a container is not particularly difficult:

1. The cellophane casing is cut at the side and bottom of the container.
2. Carefully take out the ground so that the lump does not crumble.
3. The seedling is lowered into a hole dug in advance, without shaking off the soil from the roots.
4. The neck is not buried in the ground.

It is advised to plant a bush from a container no earlier than the last days of June or early July. The ground under the plant is watered, covered with peat or mulched with humus.

In recent years, some gardeners have begun to grow gooseberries in a different way than a trellis. This agricultural technique allows you to provide the bushes with good lighting, prevent the development of diseases, and increase the yield.

Summer residents are interested in standard gooseberry varieties, which not only have a decorative look, but are easy to care for, cut, pick berries.

What does comprehensive care for gooseberry bushes include

In order for a plant that at one time was more popular than currants to bring more profit, plantings to have high profitability, you need to know how to care for gooseberries throughout the growing season. In order for a plant to please with long-term fruiting, it needs to be watered, fertilized, pruned, and disease prevention carried out.

Weed control

Gooseberry is intolerant of shade, well accepted only in loose soil.Weeding, which is usually combined with pulling out weeds, helps to improve the condition of the soil, accelerate the growth of shoots. Fungi and pests overwinter on the stems and leaves of such plants, which is fraught with the death of not only shoots, but also gooseberry bushes.

It is not recommended to plant flowers, sow herbaceous lawn plants on the plot under the berry bush. You can't control weeds with herbicides.

Pruning and shaping bushes

In order for the gooseberry to develop well, bear fruit for a long time, shoots are regularly shortened, dry and damaged branches are removed, and bushes are formed correctly. Trimming in progress:

1. For rejuvenation. Gooseberries age by 8 years to prolong the life of the plant, get rid of part of the shoots, due to which new stems are formed that will bloom profusely.
2. To increase productivity. If you do not thin out the branches, the crown thickens, pollination worsens, the ovaries are laid much less.
3. For prevention. Gooseberries often suffer from diseases caused by fungi and are affected by harmful insects. When pruning branches, the air flow improves, and the path for the sun's rays opens.
4. To form. The shoots are shortened in several stages, this procedure is one of the conditions for the development of the plant.

The gooseberry bush grows up to one and a half meters in height. Its crown is formed from branches of different ages and basal processes, which are formed from buds on the stem, which are at the base. In the first year of life, these shoots grow rapidly and become woody by autumn. Branches from the first to the third order bear fruit best. Regular pruning promotes renewal of shoots. Gooseberries form root shoots that should be disposed of.

Shrub branches are shortened immediately after planting it in the ground. In the first year, damaged and weakened stems are removed, he althy ones are cut off at an angle to the third bud from the bottom.

The following spring, shoots, shoots located horizontally, as well as branches shorter than 20 cm long, are removed, as they will take the nutrients necessary for the development of gooseberries. The strongest shoots are shortened to 0.3 m. In the third year, up to 18 branches of different ages appear near the bush. They need to cut off the top by 15 cm and remove weak shoots and horizontal shoots.

In gooseberries over 5 years old, root growths are removed, leaving 3 or 4 of the strongest branches. After each procedure, the plants are fed by digging a trench into which ammonium sulfate is added in spring, and peat or compost in autumn.

When rejuvenating pruning, when the bush reaches the age of 7 years, remove a third of the branches to the base, leaving the strongest shoots.

Regularity of plant irrigation

In order for the gooseberry to please with a harvest of large berries, to bloom profusely, the soil under the bushes should not be allowed to dry out.In regions where it rarely rains, the first watering starts when the ovary begins to set, young shoots appear, which is usually observed in May or June.

The next irrigation is carried out during the ripening of the berries and is obligatory in October, so that the plant accumulates moisture, strengthens the roots, preparing for winter. One bush needs up to 4 buckets of water, it is convenient to pour it into the grooves.

So that the earth is not taken with a crust that does not let air through to the roots, after irrigation, the soil is loosened and mulched.

Feeding and fertilizer

The fertile soil is quickly depleted, and the yield of berry bushes is noticeably reduced. To prevent this from happening, in the summer after flowering, the plants are fed with mullein, which is prepared in a ratio of 1 to 10 to water or bird droppings, diluted in a ratio of 1 to 20. Fertilizers are easier to digest if you dig grooves near the bushes at a distance of 20 cm, pour in the solution and sprinkle earth recesses.

Gooseberries react positively to top dressing with a mixture of organic matter and mineral complexes, but such a composition is applied in July or August after picking the berries. Some gardeners feed fruit bushes with ready-made fertilizers 3 times a summer.

At the end or beginning of April, when the buds on the plants begin to swell, gooseberries are watered with slightly cooled boiling water. This procedure helps protect the bushes from infection with spider mites, from aphids.

In the spring, plants are fed with ammonium nitrate or carbamide, stirring a matchbox of one of these substances in a bucket of water. Both the ground and the stem are watered with the composition, wood ash is poured under the bush. Until leaves appear on the gooseberries, you can simply scatter the urea over the area and close it with a rake.

Loosening the soil

Berry bushes do not grow and develop well when air does not reach the roots due to the fact that the ground is clogged with melt water or rain. In early spring, when it is already possible to enter the garden, they loosen the soil between the rows and bushes with a shovel, trying not to be pierced by thorns.

It is not recommended to loosen the layers of earth that form during the autumn digging, because insect larvae die in them in winter, and the remaining weed seed freezes and no longer sprouts.

Pest control

For half a century, many gooseberry varieties have been bred that are immune to fungal infection. However, the leaves and shoots of the plant are still attractive:

• sawflies:
• glass case;
• phish;
• spider mites.

In order to prevent the reproduction of insects, in early spring, the bushes are treated with chemicals, trying to get the solution into every crack. Bordeaux liquid, which is prepared from 300 g of copper sulfate and a bucket of water, effectively protects gooseberries from pests. Destroys the larvae and eggs of Nitrafen insects, but it is not recommended to spray the plants with a dark brown paste every year.

The drug D 30 copes with pests, which is applied to the shoots and clogs the respiratory apparatus of the larvae. Fight insects using folk recipes:

1. The plants are sprayed with an alkaline liquid - soda ash or ordinary soda, dissolving in a bucket, respectively, 50 or 100 g.
2. Ground a piece of laundry soap, mix with 3 liters of hot water, cool the composition, process gooseberries.
3. Before bud break, shoots are watered with boiling water.

During the growing season gardeners use insecticides - Karbofos, Aktellik, Inta-Vir, Aktaru.

Nuances of gooseberry care for diseases

Even new shrub varieties and hybrids suffer from powdery mildew. Under favorable conditions, the fungus begins to multiply, and the leaves and shoots become covered with gray spots. When the first signs of illness appear, gooseberries are treated with 3% copper sulphate.

If this method of fighting fungi and viruses is ineffective, the bushes are sprayed with Topaz, Ridomil, Skor, Arcerid fungicides.

Gooseberry Gardening Calendar

In order not to complain about small berries or a meager harvest, fruit plants need to be looked after in each season, the necessary work must be done on time for both ordinary varieties and gooseberries on the stem.

Spring treatments

As soon as the snow melts, dry leaves and branches are raked from the site, which are immediately burned. Before bud break in April, shoots are pruned, gooseberries are sprayed with pesticides, and fertilizers containing nitrogen are applied.

When the ground dries up, start loosening the row spacing, perform the second treatment of plants to prevent fungal diseases and pests, pin the layers.

In May, weeds are controlled, cuttings are grown. After flowering, the stems and leaves are sprayed with insecticides.

Summer bush care

With the onset of warm and hot days, plants are fed with mineral fertilizers and organic matter, irrigate and loosen the ground, process young shoots to prevent powdery mildew. At high temperatures and drought, shrubs are watered more often. In the summer months, berries are cut off, layering is spudded.

Autumn gardening

In October, they cut and burn diseased, old and broken branches, dig up the soil under the bushes, fertilize, plant gooseberries.

Preparing for winter

If the autumn turned out to be dry, before the cold snap, the currants are watered abundantly, the ground under the bushes is covered with mulch. Plants are spudded with fallen snow.

Methods of propagation of gooseberries

A low shrub with thorns is planted in every dacha and garden plot. To breed it, you can use several methods - prepare cuttings or layering.

Dividing the bush

To preserve the gooseberry variety you like, old branches are removed from dug up plants, leaving strong young shoots. With a secateurs or an ax, the bush is divided into seedlings, which should have roots, the top is shortened by 15 cm. Superphosphate, humus, potassium s alt are added to the soil and parts of the plant are transplanted.

Root shoots

Gooseberries take root well, and any undamaged part can be used for propagation. Annual plants have a fibrous root, shoots depart from it, which are separated from the mother bush and planted in fertilized soil.

Propagation by layering

It is most convenient to breed gooseberries vegetatively. Seeds are used to develop new varieties, but this process consists of several steps.

Horizontal layering

In the spring, until the buds have blossomed, a little earth is raked from the bush to form a recess, the width of which should correspond to the size of the shoots that will fit into it.Then a dozen branches aged a year or 2 are picked up, the tops are shortened by a quarter and placed horizontally in the prepared recess and secured with hooks.

After a few days, these shoots will develop buds from which branches will grow. Layers with formed roots are dug up in autumn and transplanted into the ground.

Arcuate

This method of propagation of currants is started in the spring. Annual shoots are laid in rows in furrows, attached in the middle of the recess and sprinkled with soil. The tops of the growths are directed in an arc to the ground, tied to a support, shortened and spudded with soil. Over the summer, the layers become stronger, but only one powerful seedling grows, which quickly pleases with the first berries.

Vertical

To propagate gooseberries, the bushes are placed densely, and in the third year the plants are shortened, leaving 15 cm to the stumps. After pruning, the branches develop rapidly, and when their height reaches 30 centimeters, they spud with earth. By autumn, the shoots have roots.

The main mistakes in plant care: how to prevent them

Often, novice summer residents often take care of gooseberries not under the guidance of specialists, but on their own, as a result they make many mistakes:

1. The bushes are watered from above, which is fraught with the activation of fungi. Moisturize only the ground.
2. Do not remove excess shoots, which leads to thickening of the site, deterioration of fruiting.
3. When loosening damage roots close to the surface. A hoe must be used as a gardening tool.
4. The crown is formed incorrectly. Anti-aging pruning should be done in stages.
5. Feeding is carried out untimely, with an excess of fertilizer, lush foliage is formed, but small berries.

Sometimes summer residents take shelter late for the winter. Gooseberries overheat and may disappear. You can not shorten the branches when the buds have blossomed. It is better to postpone pruning until autumn.

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