"Mary Fisher" wrote in message
t...



A few fag ends infused in water overnight would make a very
effective insecticide, but it caused a lot of health and safety
problems.

But surely this insecticide is pretty organic? :-)

Please dismiss the word "organic" from your vocabulary as regards
both gardening (and farming) and chemical identity.

Technically speaking, any chemical compound that contains at
least one carbon atom is "organic". The category embraces
everything from carbon dioxide and sugar (both lethal in large
enough doses) to virulent poisons of which small doses can kill
you in a few seconds.

No! Really?

Yes, really.

To replace "organic" in reference to horticulture goings on, use
the phrase "free of petrochemical derivatives not occurring in
nature"

Oh come on!

The sentence to which you are objecting is quite strictly correct.


Some usages of words we have to accept according to context. This is a
gardening group.

Gardeners should realise that they frequently get their knickers in a twist
through the misuse of terms which have prior definitions differing from
those they *think* are correct. It has, for instance, occurred in this very
thread. "Organic" itself is a case in point. There is a great tendency to
call "beneficient" chemicals "organic" and others "inorganic".

I have just rechecked the definition of the term "organic" in the Penguin
Dictionary of Chemistry.
".........Organic chemistry is now the study of the compounds of carbon,
whether they be isolated from natural sources or synthesised in the
laboratory.........."

[Franz Heymann]