The next time you do a load of laundry, consider adding just a tablespoon of regular table salt with your laundry detergent. The hero ingredient in salt, chloride, is a natural sealant that protects clothing, especially brightly colored fabrics. And if your garments go through repeated washings, this one little addition of regular table salt can help extend the life of your clothing and help it look newer, longer. If you are concerned that new clothes might bleed dye into your wash, add more salt -- about 1/2 cup -- to help prevent that from happening.

It’s pretty common knowledge that planting flowers can help honeybees thrive; bees feed on the nectar that flowers produce, and they carry pollen to help with pollination. But not all flowers are the same when you’re choosing which varieties to put in your garden. Seek out flowers with “single tops,” instead of those with “double tops.”  Single-top flowers like marigolds and daisies are preferred because they produce more nectar and are desirable for bees. And avoid “hybridized” plants, which are bred not to seed and have a side effect of producing nearly no pollen.

Over time, a plastic garden hose can crack and spring a leak, which would lead most of us to toss it and buy a new one at the store. But before you throw away that garden hose, consider doing an easy repair. It’s as simple as cutting out the bad part of the hose with a box cutter and using a hose repair kit to mend it back together. The inexpensive kit covers the two newly cut sides of the garden hose and cinches them together. Four simple screws tighten the new area, and voila! Your old hose is as good as new.