I can't think of any reason not to compost Hemlock. What have you heard about it? If you're thinking it's toxic to humans, just don't eat the plants or the compost. That may sound flippant, but it's true.

If there's something I'm missing here hopefully someone will chime in.

This post was edited by toxcrusadr on Wed, Apr 30, 14 at 14:53

Thanks, Tox. I would consider it OK for being thoroughly composted, but I also was the same one considering eating the crap before I knew what it was. Ooooh, lookie! Looks like wild carrots! And I thought the cow parsnip was So pretty! Sometimes, I just want to throw myself into a river.

I heard pokeweed was delicious and showed a plant biologist friend a whole bag of leaves I had collected. Her jaw dropped and she told me you have to eat the young shoots when they're just sprouting out of the ground, but if I ate those mature leaves, I'd have diarrhea I wouldn't forget for a long time. :-o

Just don't eat the shrooms, them thangs'll kill ya.

I had hemlock sprout up, and read that the toxins do persist long enough that it shouldn't be composted. That was several years ago and so I do not remember where I read it -- might have been a state or university website.

tox, funny how it doesn't bother locals? Just never know....

raee- thanks! I need to start a segregated pile asap for such things that bring me doubt.

I think of pokeweed as the blowfish of the vegetable world.
Pick it young, boil it and dump the water several times. Stay away from the roots. If you don't do it right, it can kill you.

We eat shrooms all the time in WVA. Just need to go with someone who knows their stuff. (I began to study it one year, but decided to just keep growing things instead.)