It seems I've heard at one time or other you can bake dirt - - in a
pan, in the oven - - to kill weed seeds. Any truth to this?

BTW the reason I enclosed "compost" in quotes is I've never added any
manure, nothing to help it cook other than coffee grounds. Not sure
if this qualifies as compost or not, but it sure is rich looking.

It'll do it, but you'll be sorry (and if you're married, you may end up in
divorce court).

Best bet is to cover it with plastic and let the sun do your work.
Something else you may want to consider is just holding onto it this season
and making it into a regular compost heap -- add various organic materials,
water it and turn it, etc.. You'll find this does a pretty good job of
killing the weed seeds all by itself.

There are a number of decent online resources for proper maintenance of a
compost heap, but one of my favorites is Paul James' -- the man lives for
compost, he's said the word so much that I think he legally owns it. :P
Just go to HGTV's web site and search on compost and you'll get all sorts of
hits.

James