Super soils are amended HOT and need the composting time to break stuff down so as not to burn your plants. If it only stayed hot for a week then something went wrong. composting requires air, and moisture. Since you weren't mixing the pile I am sure the microbes didn't get enough air and died off. You can get it started back up though, just hit it with some microbes and turn the pile like you did the first time around. If it is still not staying hot then I would assume that the microbes have fed off all the amendments, in which case it would be ready for planting. However I would be concerned with having enough nutrients in the soil to sustain a grow if composting was shorter than a month with a "SS"
Thank you, exactly the info I was looking for. I figured if it went cold that something went wrong.
I started mixing them again and added a little water and the heat has slowly started to come back. Just going to mix it every few days.
I have a slightly different question now.
I had some soil, maybe a few gallons worth go bad(get a fowl, stinky feet type of smell to it) and I left it in the barrel with the lid off to dry and mixed every week or so. It stayed in the barrel with the lid off for a good month or so but didn't completely dry out. I ended up using the rest of this soil for a new batch, about two cubic feet.
Now I'm noticing after a few days of letting it sit, it starts to get a bad smell again until I mix it all up, then it smells good. So the question is, is that "bad bacteria" really strong enough for what I'm assuming wasnt much of it, to take over all them good microbes and bacteria and start killing them? I was under the impression that the good stuff would be able to over take what was left of the bad stuff.