Post Script completion of first hot compost heap

From an unpublished post:

This is Day 23 for my compost heap.  This morning I measured temperatures for first time since Day 18.  They were around 40C all around, with outliers of 35C and 45C.  The centre of the heap was 50C with one reading of 55C, some dry patches and not a great deal of recognisable anything.  Horse poo almost all gone, some husks of long leaf prunings, woody twigs etc (which I remove when I find them) and occasional still-clumped chicken poo.  I added three more shovels of chook poo to centre while turning it over and wet it down on the outside.  Around sunset temperatures were a pretty even 30-32C all around at probe depth.

I used two shovels of my compost around seven iris bulbs/plants I put in around the trellis rose near the house.  I didn't do much with the sandy soil, just enough to cover the top of the bulbs. I used the the compost to mulch between them, mainly as soil conditioner.  Certainly noticed the difference when I put some water on it, the way it was soaked up and held by the mulch.  The guy we got the bulbs from numbered all the plants he gave us, so we can identify any particular favourites in future.

On Day 24 I took some final temperatures.  They'd dropped to 30-35C.

By Day 25 the heap's temperature was down into the mid twenties, so I thought it was time to start putting it out into the garden.