Q. My tomato plant has white deposits on it for the last few days. I am attaching a photograph for reference. What are these? And please suggest any remedy for it. I am from Islamabad.

A. These white deposits are pests known as “mealy bugs” and, sadly, they don’t go away easily. A workable remedy would be to spray the plant with this mixture: take one spoonful of neem oil with a few drops of dishwashing liquid soap and add both of these to one litre of water. Even if you don’t have the neem oil readily available, you may simply use a few drops of dishwashing liquid soap only. Now spray it generously on the plant weekly. You may also need to physically remove these bugs as well with the help of a dried twig.

Q. I live in Karachi. We don’t have ground space available for gardening. We grow seasonal herbs, flowers and other plants on rooftops, but in earthen pots, plastic vegetable crates and wooden boxes. We recently bought potatoes. Interestingly, small plants are growing from the spots on the potato skin (eyes). I was wondering if that can be grown in the containers that I have or if you can provide us with any suggestions. Previously, my deceased uncle would grow it easily in open spaces, but now lack of gardening space is a major hindrance for me.

A. One drawback in this case is that the potato tubers, being an underground stem, usually thrive well when their plants are grown in depth. When grown in containers, the size and space of the container matters a lot. Even if a plant somehow manages to grow in such containers, the size of the harvested tubers would be markedly compromised. This rules out the vegetable crates, as well as the pots and wooden boxes if they are of smaller size. It would have been helpful if you had shared the exact size of the containers that you mentioned.

All your gardening queries answered here…

Considering your limitations, you should go for a pot with at least a 16-inch height and a 16-inch width, if you want to grow these on the rooftop. Ideally, the container should be a 10 to 15 gallons size. However, carrying a larger-sized container to the rooftop would be really difficult. My suggestion would be to check out a rice or lentil sack of 50 kg as well. You can easily purchase it at throwaway prices from any nearby flour mills in your locality.

When filled and the potatoes are planted at the bottom or at the middle level, it provides the plant with enough space to grow upwards, mimicking the exact conditions that the plant would receive when grown in the ground. I have done it many times myself, always with a reasonable harvest.

We will soon publish an article on how you can easily grow potatoes without much space at your home as well. It will address many other relevant issues and provide suggestions as well.

Q. My mother has grown a few flowering plants on the lawn. There was an issue with their flowering, and someone suggested putting a handful of turmeric (haldi powder) in the plants. Does that help?

A. Turmeric works primarily as a fungicide. If there is any fungal issues or disease in the soil, any other critters, or maybe fungus or infections in the roots of the plants, turmeric may be recommended as a remedy. And turmeric can be applied if any of the above mentioned issues are present. Otherwise, decreased or limited flowering is generally due to overwatering or less sunlight exposure to the plant. If the soil’s nitrogen content is high or the plant is being provided with minimal potassium-based fertilisers, it can sometimes also result in decreased flowering.

Q. I want to share my gratitude for your furnishing worthy information about gardening. It was a privilege to go through your article about cucumbers. I am delighted to know that your guidance is available via email. God bless you.

A. Thank you so much for your email. It really means a lot. For all our readers, please note that, because of the high inflow of emails, we do not respond individually to any email. Rather, a few selected emails are chosen from the ones received in a month’s time and are responded to here every fourth week. Also, just a reminder that you should always mention your city in the emails. Please refrain from sending zipped files; a simple attached jpeg would do. Finally, if we deliberately leave out any relevant aspect in a specific article, it is always mentioned that it will be covered later in upcoming articles. This is due to length constraints.

Please send your queries and emails to doctree101@hotmail.com. The writer is a physician and a host for the YouTube channel ‘DocTree Gardening’ promoting organic kitchen gardening

Published in Dawn, EOS, June 25th, 2023