Gooseberry care, planting, protection

Content:

The article describes in detail the care of gooseberries, the rules for planting it, protection against diseases, pests.

Gooseberry care: basic information

If the gooseberry is properly looked after, it will bear fruit for 20-25 years, and this is not the limit. Sometimes gooseberries bear fruit for 40 years. To make this a reality, of course you need to take care of him, you can't just plant a gooseberry and forget about it.

Gooseberry is a short shrub. It grows to approximately 120 cm in height. Gooseberry sprigs are covered with brown or gray peeling bark and small green leaves. The branches have small thorny thorns.

This shrub blooms in May. Its axillary flowers are green or red. Gooseberry fruits are small, they can reach approximately 1-1.5 cm in diameter. But there are varieties of gooseberries, the fruits of which are much larger. Gooseberry fruits can be red, green, black, yellow. They are very useful for the body, because they contain a large amount of vitamins and organic acids.

The gooseberry is a good honey plant, so it would be nice for beekeepers to have it in their area, so the plant could be of double benefit. The gooseberry is a self-fertile crop. This means that even if only one gooseberry bush grows in the garden, it will bear great fruit.

Gooseberries can be planted in spring or autumn. Experienced gardeners prefer to do this in the fall, around the second half of September or early October. If you plant the gooseberries later, they may not have time to take root before the frost begins. Of course, you can plant gooseberries in the spring, but this can have a bad effect on its growth and fruiting.

Before planting gooseberries, you need to choose a suitable place for this. You also need to learn more about this plant, you need to know when to cut it, how to protect it from diseases and pests. Taking proper care of your gooseberry is very important.

Gooseberry care: where to plant gooseberries

Gooseberries are very light-requiring. If you plant it in the shade, then you can not expect a bountiful harvest. The plant will wither and shrink every year and give less and less berries. Also, the gooseberry does not like an excess of moisture; water should not linger in the place of its planting. If you plant a gooseberry in a place where the soil is excessively moist, its roots can rot. The gooseberry planting site should be well lit by the sun, and the groundwater in this place should not be located close to the surface. Do not plant gooseberries in clay soils.

Growing gooseberries: how to choose the right seedlings

It is very important to choose a good gooseberry seedling for planting. The market sells mainly gooseberry seedlings, which are one year old. They have an open root system and a small ground part. The root is the most important part of the seedling, so it must be in good condition. It must be sufficiently well developed and in no case should it be overdried. The ground part should look good and not have any damage. After good seedlings have been selected and the place where they will grow has been determined, the next stage begins - planting.

How to plant gooseberries

Planting gooseberries is easy. Gardeners who have already grown this plant will cope with this without problems. Those who plant gooseberries for the first time, too, subject to certain rules, will be able to do this.

If several plants are planted, the markings must first be done. To do this, a bar is placed on the ground, and pegs are stuck into the ground at a distance of 1.1-1.3 m along it. In their place, you will then need to dig holes. If this is more convenient, then instead of a bar, you can take a rope, this is not important, the main thing is to make a markup. Then you need to dig holes, their number should correspond to the number of seedlings. Do not dig deep holes, enough holes 25-30 cm deep. This depth is suitable for the size of the gooseberry roots.

To make sure that the plant has living roots, you need to trim them slightly with pruning shears, if the cut is white, then they are alive. The day before planting, the seedlings must be soaked in water.

Before planting, you need to place about 200 grams of mineral fertilizer in each hole. You can also put a couple of shovels of manure there. It should be rotted manure. Fertilizers must be mixed well with the soil. Then seedlings are placed in the hole and covered with earth. The hole should contain not only the gooseberry root, but also a few centimeters of the stem. After the hole is filled up, you need to lightly tamp the soil and water the seedlings. One seedling needs a bucket of water. Watering the seedlings is necessary immediately after planting.

Gooseberry care: rules

In order for a gooseberry to produce a good harvest, it needs proper care, which includes more than just watering. In order for the bush to grow well and actively bear fruit, the soil needs to be loosened regularly. With what intensity the soil is loosened depends on the type of soil. If the soil is very dense, then you need to loosen it with a shovel; for loose soil, surface loosening with a pitchfork is enough.

Gooseberry roots are close to the soil surface, so when loosening the soil near the trunk and under the crown, you should try not to touch them. The tool should be deepened into the ground no more than 6-8 cm. With care, only the soil under the crown should be processed, other zones can be worked more confidently and intensively.
In addition, gooseberries need mandatory weeding. Weed control should not be neglected. They can cause excessive moisture, which can make gooseberries sick.

In the first year after planting, gooseberries do not need fertilization. And next year it can already be fertilized. The optimal fertilizer will be manure mixed with ammonium nitrate. Manure can be replaced with bird droppings. The resulting solution should be poured under the bush; it is not necessary to pour it onto the bush itself. One bucket of mortar is the norm for each bush. In the third year of plant life, it is fashionable to use a mixture of manure, superphosphate and potassium sulfate as fertilizer. Then you need to feed the gooseberries twice a year. Organic mineral fertilizers can be used for this purpose. Many gardeners speak well of "Sinata", "Bioprotect". Top dressing should be done in accordance with the instructions for fertilizers.

A very important point in caring for gooseberries is pruning them. In the early years, pruning is needed to form a bush. The entire main part of the root growth must be removed, the skeletal branches are shortened in half. When gooseberries are four years old, the principles of pruning change. Then, first of all, they begin to remove dried branches and weak shoots. A pruner is used to remove them. The formation of the bush should be started before the buds begin to bloom on it in the spring and after all the leaves fall off in the fall. To increase the yield of gooseberries, gardeners shorten the green shoots in the summer. The tops of the branches are cut so that 6-7 leaves remain on each branch. This helps to increase the size of the fruit.

Gooseberry cultivation and care, pest and disease control

Any garden crop can become a victim of diseases and pests. Gooseberries are no exception in this regard. It can be harmed by moths, sawers, etc. You can fight these pests with the help of an infusion made from wood ash and water. If there is no opportunity or desire to prepare this infusion, then you can buy a pest repellent, you can find it in any specialized store. It is best to process the gooseberries in the spring, but if the need arises, then after the gooseberries have finished blooming, the processing can be repeated.

Gooseberries are more prone to get sick and be attacked by pests in the spring and at the very beginning of summer, therefore, during this period, you need to carefully monitor the plant, examine it for the presence of pests and diseases, and monitor its development. If the plant has at least some signs of disease, you do not need to wait, you need to immediately treat the gooseberry with appropriate preparations.

For the prevention of fungal diseases in March, gooseberries need to be doused with boiling water. To combat such dangerous pests as aphids and kidney mites, the ash solution will not be enough, more serious measures will be needed. Before the gooseberry begins to bloom, it must be treated with a mullein solution. It is prepared from cow dung and water.

A bud mite lives inside the buds of a plant, for which it received this name. This pest is most dangerous for currants, but it can also harm gooseberries. The buds that were damaged by this mite in the spring will not be able to bloom and will die. In summer, the pest moves to other buds. It is very easy to understand that a plant is infected. The buds in which the tick has settled are enlarged, visually they seem to be more swollen and round. A seedling prepared for planting can be infected with a kidney mite, and this pest can also be transmitted by birds, insects and people. For its prevention, great attention should be paid to the planting material. For harvesting cuttings, you need to choose healthy plants. To disinfect the cuttings, they are dipped before planting and kept for 12-15 minutes in water heated to 45 degrees. If the plants have infected buds, they must be removed immediately. Also, for prophylaxis during flowering, gooseberries are sprayed with garlic infusion.

Spider mites harm gooseberry leaves by sucking juices out of them. The leaves begin to fall off and the plant withers away. Spider mites attack plants in May and can harm them throughout the summer. The best prevention for spider mites is proper gooseberry care. It is imperative to dig up the soil in the fall and weed out the weeds. But if it turned out to be useless, and the mite still appeared, then infusions of garlic, onion husks or tobacco will help in the fight against it.

A pest such as a sawfly is very dangerous for gooseberries. Its larvae are able to destroy almost all the leaves on the bush in a few days. Cocoons of this parasite hibernate in the ground, and in spring adult insects are born, which do not waste time and lay their eggs on the inside of the leaves. After a while, the caterpillars are removed from them. You can fight them by shaking off the leaves of the plant and destroying it. After flowering, the bush must be treated with a solution of 10% karbofos. For the prevention of the pest in the fall, the soil is dug up. You can also plant tomato bushes next to the gooseberry, tomatoes will scare off the sawfly.

After the snow falls, the gooseberries need to be covered with some kind of dense material. This way you can destroy all pests that winter in the ground.

Common mistakes when growing gooseberries

Many budding gardeners make mistakes when growing gooseberries. These errors are all very similar.
Do not water the gooseberry bushes from above, it is harmful for him. From such watering, the plant can get sick and begin to rot.You can use a thick layer of mulch to reduce the number of waterings and to bother yourself with them less. Since the roots of the gooseberry are close to the surface of the soil, in order not to harm them, it is better to use a hoe or rake while loosening. Before you start feeding gooseberries, you need to take into account the fertilizers that were used during planting. If during planting, both mineral and organic fertilizers were applied, the plant will not need feeding for several more years. Moderation should also be observed with pruning. If the gooseberry bush is running, you do not need to try to shape it in one pruning. If you overdo it, the plant may simply die.

Gooseberry care