1. You can sterilize garden soil in your microwave ovens. This can be used then for planting seedlings. This though is not a practical way of producing a growing medium for your plant seedlings, as you can only really do about half a pound at a time and there is no real guarantee that it will work. It is recommended that the soil is blasted on full power for 90 seconds or until it is steaming.

2. To sterilize kitchen cloths, rinse them with clean water, and put them into your microwave oven damp, then blast them for thirty second on full power. There are a couple of draw backs to this though. If the cloths are dry they will catch fire very quickly and the damp cloths generate a a large amount of steam and get very hot, so make sure they are left for a couple of minutes with the microwave off before removing them from the microwave.

3. Get more from lemons by heating them on full power for twenty seconds. This appears to produce more juice. I do not know why and there is probably some very good scientific reason, but it does work!

4. Ladies you can life out of your old dried up mascara by putting it into your microwave oven and cooking it on full power for 15 to 20 seconds. Put a cup of water in the microwave with it for safety reasons as the mascara may explode.

5. Dry herbs in your microwave. Wash the herbs first and then spread them over a piece of kitchen roll and put another piece of kitchen roll over the top. Cook them on full power for about forty seconds and they will be dried and ready to use however you want. This is a quick and easy way to preserve some of the herbs from your garden.