Going back to the OP it's about using top dressings...and I've always had good results using this method and not just the time I mentioned. I've never used compost as a top dressing but cooking up a bunch now so we'll see how that works out during the winter. A decent part of the compost I make will be fed to worms for casting so will have compost and castings to play with. A bunch more of the compost will simply go into a custom mix and some of it will be used for teas.
I'm using thermo compost as a top dressing right now. It was just cooled and I was leary of just mixing it in, so I top dressed it and so far it seems like it did help. I gave some to my worms too, but they aren't exactly tearing into it, maybe it's the oak leaf base.....scrappy