Ordinary white sugar has many uses around the house. Use for burns,flies, cockroaches and many other things.
Make Cut Flowers Last Longer
Add a tablespoon of sugar to a litre of water in the flower vase. The dissolved sugar nourishes the stems and keeps the flowers fresh for longer. If you add a tablespoon of vinegar as well, you won't get the mould and bacterial growth that causes that bad smell from the water after a few days.
Improve Outdoor Plant Health
If outdoor plants start to look unhealthy and you notice small lumps on the roots, your garden may have a nematode infection. These are tiny worms that invade the root especially in tuberous plants like carrots and potatoes. Mix handfuls of sugar into the soil around infected plants. This increases the numbers of bacteria that can fight the invasion.
Hand Cleaner
Sugar is an abrasive and if you have very dirty, greasy, or oily hands, rubbing them with sugar with clean them.
Wasp Trap
Boil 2 ounces of sugar and a little water in a pan to make a sticky liquid. Pour this into empty jars, or a dish and leave in the open where wasps will be attracted to sweetness. They go into the liquid to feed and cant get out.
Soothe a Burned Tongue
If you have ever burned your tongue on a hot drink, or hot food, you will know how much it hurts. Sprinkle sugar on it and the pain will subside.
Kill Cockroaches
Mix equal parts of sugar and baking powder. Sugar attracts these horrible creatures and baking powder kills them.
Fly Catcher
Boil half a litre of water, sugar, pepper (about a teaspoonful) and two tablespoons of water together and place in a bowl. This will attract flies and they will fall into the liquid.
Start a Fire
If you have trouble getting a coal, or wood fire to burn throw a handful of sugar onto it. The sugar will ignite and help get the fire going.
Keep Biscuits Fresh
Put a few sugar lumps in the bottom of your biscuit tin. The lumps will absorb the moisture and keep the biscuits fresh.
Keep Cake Fresh
Sprinkle home-made cakes with sugar while they are still hot. This keeps them fresh longer.
I had no idea it could clean hands. Although it may work for a wasp catcher it is probably more effective to use soda. Nice list.
#3 by Judy Sheldon-Walker, Jan 13, 2008
Such a helpful list. Thank you.
#4 by IcyCucky, Jan 13, 2008
I only thing I know on this list is to use sugar to soften my hands..Great list, Louie.
#5 by Liane Schmidt, Jan 13, 2008
Wow...what an interesting article. I would never have thought that sugar could help a fire get going! Great work Louie!
Best wishes.
Sincerely,
-Liane Schmidt.
#6 by Dee Huff, Jan 13, 2008
Louie, No. 5 onwards were all new to me. I have one more use for sugar though: stopping the hiccups. Swallowing one heaped teaspoonful of sugar has, so far in my experience, been a foolproof remedy when all else fails.
#7 by Lucy Lockett, Jan 13, 2008
Great list of things to use up all the sugar!
#8 by Anne Lyken-Garner, Jan 14, 2008
VEry useful hints especially the one about starting a fire. I take the kids I work with to a cottage in the mountains in Wales for adventure week-ends, and sometimes the fire is really difficult to get going.
I will cetainly try this one next time.
#9 by valli, Jan 14, 2008
Very useful information Louie.
#10 by Adam Gaines, Jan 25, 2008
If you cut your fingers, you can pour sugar on it to make it clot really fast and stop bleeding.
#11 by cherrycher, Jan 28, 2008
Very cool.
#12 by Ray D, Jan 29, 2008
Actually Adam you don't even need sugar to to clot a cut. Just lick some saliva on it. The natural saline causes clotting much more quickly than anything I've found. I get a lot of spit in my mouth then dab my finger on my tongue and repeatedly & rapidly tap the finger on the cut. The tapping also causes the body to react faster (by stimulating the nerve endings where ever your cut) to clot even faster ;-)
#13 by Jenny, Feb 2, 2008
You shouldn't write stuff like that where everyone can see it. That is kind of embarrassing.
#14 by abigail, Mar 17, 2008
sugar mixed with glycerine is a good foot and heel scrub
