When I was a kid, my grandma had a compost heap that was the best compost heap I have ever seen. It was about 6 feet by 6 feet and there was a ton of rich, dark compost in there. It always impressed me, and I decided when I grew up I would have a compost heap like that.

It has not worked out as well as all that, although I do have a compost container. I think part of my compost’s problem is that I’m not throwing nearly as much stuff in there as my grandma did. There were a lot of things I didn’t realize you could compost until I saw this post over at Stop The Ride. She links to a page that has 163 things you can toss in your compost. Many of those things I never realized you could put in there, like fish bones and chicken poo.

Now, my house is not exactly overflowing with chicken poo, but it’s nice to know if I had some, I could compost it. I think the reason you can do that is because chickens are vegetarians. You can’t compost any poo that comes from non-vegetarians, I do know that.

Other things I did not know you could compost is the stuff from your vacuum dust cup and hair. When I brush my cats I usually come up with enough hair to be able to make a few new cats, so composting that is a good way to reduce the amount of trash I’m throwing away.