Brewing a good compost
by MATT CHANDLER

I've got a good friend, Bram, back home in New England (Maine, to be precise) who is a professionally trained chef operating his own catering business and function facility. For many years I worked alongside Bram, and I was thinking recently about an old gardening trick that he shared with me. To put the forthcoming story in its proper perspective, he lives on a large parcel of land in the community of Eliot, Maine. Though it may seem unheard of in Buffalo, he has several sheep roaming in his backyard and, at one time, a rooster (though it got eaten

Gardening

by a fox, so you get the picture of where the story takes place).

Alongside his barn, Bram maintained a compost pile. Given the large quantities of leftover food scraps, peelings and waste created when you are preparing food to feed 300 hungry wedding-goers, the compost pile was as much a practical way to dispose of the leftovers as it was a way to improve the quality of his garden.

Into the pile would go the peelings from 50 pounds of carrots, potatoes, corn cobs, zucchini and squash tops, and other assorted foodstuffs. But the key ingredient to a successful compost pile, Bram always said, was coffee grounds.

He related to me a story of working as a chef in Boston in his younger days, and a guy who used to travel from restaurant to restaurant collecting the used coffee grounds. He explained that the coffee grounds offered the best aeration to the compost pile, which is a fancy way of saying they allowed the air to circulate through the pile and speed up its breakdown. Those of you who have experience with a compost pile know how critical it is to properly and regularly 'turn your pile." With the addition of the coffee grounds, you are simply aiding your own cause and ensuring you will have a top-quality, rich, fertile soil to use in your garden or potted plants.

The art of the compost pile seemed to fall out of vogue for some time, but with the focus on green living and the need to be environmentally responsible at the forefront of our daily living in this country, the compost pile is making a comeback.

You can find books, how-to guides and even compost bins for sale at your local nursery.

Though it takes a bit of work on the front side, a well-tended compost pile with a healthy dose of coffee grounds in the mix will yield you a batch of soil that will be the envy of your gardening friends. More importantly, you will enjoy a plentiful cornucopia of plump, fresh, all-natural vegetables that will put their store-bought counterparts to shame.