This cycle continues until the substrates allowing rapid bacterial and fungal growth are used up, or low enough in concentration that bacterial growth does not out-strip oxygen diffusion. This cycling takes months, and in some instances, years. The growth of these organisms cannot be so rapid as to use up all the oxygen, but a good diversity of organisms is needed to consume all the anaerobic decomposition products diffusing from the middle of the pile. It is probably best to cover a static compost pile with a layer of just-barely mature compost. The pile should be turned a few times to make sure no temperature spikes occur.
Static piles take a great deal of time and space.
But they can be effective ways to deal with truly obnoxious material. Compost and humus are relatively close, since the processes of production are quite similar, but humus has a particular connotation of benefit which compost does not currently carry. Maturity and stability are defined by many people as basically two sides to the same coin, but other people define these two terms quite differently. Compost Compost is decomposed organic matter but some of the material can still be recognizable as the plant from which the material was composed. Composting, or decomposition of organic matter, has gained a bad reputation in many places because of poor management of the composting process.