'USE it or lose it" doesn't always apply. Not when nanny knows best and nanny lives in a tangle of red tape in an ivory tower in Brussels.

We used to dust flowers of sulphur on our dahlia tubers to prevent them rotting in winter storage and dip our brassica seedling roots in calomel to guard against clubroot. They've gone.

Smoke "bombs", which cleared greenhouse pests without the need to clear out all the plants (in which said pests were living anyway), have gone. Ask why they've gone and the general belief is that "Brussels said so".

Proprietary cleaners and bug killers are going the same way. The universal drain cleaner, path algae clearer and soil steriliser, Jeyes Fluid, will still be available, but not as a soil steriliser, we are told. How will "they" know what we do with it?

So many old but useful substances are now banned as harmful to us or to the environment that the new game is predicting what will be next and stocking up on it.

Household ammonia might be in nanny's firing line, I thought, as even in solution it has to be used carefully in a well-ventilated space, but it is be vital for removing any build-up of polish we may get on our wood-block floor.

The biggest postbag this column has ever generated was prompted, a couple of years ago, by that polish. I say postbag, but there were phonecalls, faxes and e-mails, too. I was stopped in the street and at coffee mornings and, when I gave a talk, questions from the floor began with "What's the name of that floor polish?"

As we haven't actually got a build-up in two years' use, the large bottle of ammonia I've just acquired from the great little shop which also sold me the polish should see me out in well-diluted cupfuls - unless nanny starts cupboard-under-the-stairs and back shed inspections.

I still use starch on household cotton and linen, not only for the lovely crisp feel but because, especially on teatowels, it provides a dirt-repellent dressing. I've got four boxes stored away, though I suspect that is vanishing more from lack of use than because it will pollute rivers, thin the ozone layer or poison the cat.

Likewise with washing soda, grease-buster in chief when combined with boiling water and as effective (and cheaper) than many branded drain cleaners. I've stocked up on that, too.

When "they" find out how many uses baking soda - bi-carbonate of soda on Sundays - has, there will be some newly-discovered reason why it's bad in its diluted form for washing out fridges or putting a dirt-repellent coating on ovens. Combined with ordinary malt vinegar and followed by boiling water, it will unblock a sink, too.

Vinegar itself in the rinsing water makes windows sparkle, is cheaper than a spray cleaner and comes in a recyclable glass bottle. Scrunched-up damp newspaper isn't bad on windows and mirrors either (but the green police may one day insist all newspapers have to go unscrunched into the recycling bin).

* I can't believe it. The morning after I wrote this, I woke to hear the bedroom radio announce that the European Commission was to test the safety of 30,000 (yes, 30,000) chemicals found in everyday products. Buy now while stocks exist!