A compost cake after six months

A Compost Cake After Six Months

After six months, it's time to see whether your compost cake has turned into humus-rich, friable compost.

In order to check your cake, remove the top layer of straw and dig into the centre with a fork. If there are any materials around the outside of your cake that haven't broken down, remove these and save for another pile.

While the majority of your materials should be nicely digested by this point, you may find that there are some larger chunks of woody material within it. To remove these, pass the compost through a sieve before storing.

If You're Worried About Weed Seed

The compost cake we showed you reached a maximum temperature of 58 degrees, which means there may have still been some weed seed inside. As a general rule, compost has to be at a sustained temperature of 60 degrees to kill off all the weed seeds present.

If you're worried about weed seed in your compost, put some of the compost in a seed tray on your windowsill before using. This will give any seeds the opportunity to sprout before you use it.

Using the Compost

As you will observe when you make a compost cake, the size of your cake will reduce dramatically once all the materials have turned into compost. This compost, though, will be brimming with life, and a little will go a very long way.