Banned ... but good!

We used to fire nails out of them (with the flat end at the front) because they flew much further and faster, but would often rotate so the pointy end was at the front by the time they hit the far wall/whatever. Another form of improvised ammo was a thin wooden stick (cocktail?) with cardboard fins stuck on just where it projected from the gun barrel and with a needle lashed with cotton to the end. Perhaps that was why they were banned?

 

I bought some yellow sulphur today, and the gardencentre knew nothing about it being withdrawn, they had lots of it.
Couldn't buy the sulphur chips that I usually use, but that was down to the fact that Chempak has been taken over by Thompson & Morgan.
Well that's what they told me.

 

I was reading a "finds" thread on a metal detecting forum yesterday. One read "Toy Cannon, exploded!"

 

Manage to get any Potassium Nitrate?

 

Derris powder (used to be 'organic' I think) was the only stuff that ever seemed to stop flea beetles destroying summer brassica seedlings, but was banned a few years ago, just after I bought a whole basketful of the stuff at Wilkos with 75% off. Still got quite a few left.

 

So its two fingers for the EU.

 

Strange though isn't it that kids years ago just had the sense not to fire them at another kid, God know what the brainless lot these days would do with them, doesn't bear thinking about!!

Val

 

Yes, we were never so stupid to fire them at one another. I can remember tying wads of cotton wool, etc. doused with flammable liquid to the ends and trying and hit similarly soaked targets, but we weren't stupid enough to do this indoors.

It must have been naughty modern kids that got our cherished playthings banned.

 

Meow Meow :D

 

This one may not actually be banned as it might be classed as a deterrent (like prickly leaves, etc.?) rather than a pesticide. From 'Organic Gardening' by Roy Lacey 1988 (got a signed 1st edition) on page 140 under do-it-yourself sprays:

"an old remedy to deter snails and slugs is to collect as many as possible, morning and evening. Tip them into a bucket of boiling water and let it stand for a few days until the smell becomes fearsome, then strain off the liquid and use it to sprinkle round vulnerable plants, such as the young growth of delphiniums, lettuce and so on – but not on them. The remains of the slugs and snails can also be scattered."

Anybody tried it?

 

No. And I never will I would throw up

 

I have heard of this one but am not tempted to try it. Would prefer my garden to smell of dew, petals and sweet brown earth rather than rotting mollusc corpses! Free, though, and organic.

 

That sounds like an irate gardener getting his own back on molluscs, rather than a bona fide deterrent.