Should you compost poisonous plants?

I just did a search and did not find an answer to my question.

I did find that many plants, like grapes, are poisonous to animals but not to people.

My specific question concerns composting chinese wisteria.

That's an interesting question. However, for me, the final question is, is what youi grow in it ever going to become poisonous? I don't think so. Plants make up their poisonous or non-poisonous contents themselves and I would think if they would absorb plant poison and pass it along, somebody would have figured that out by now.

I think in composting, it breaks down to 'building blocks' of plant growth and then is absorbed that way too.
Anybody know anything different?

Wellll ... ... hmmm. I remember looking up Oleanders when I lived in Phoenix - known to be deadly to any living creature. The source that I took the info from stated that the poison was actually too large of a molecule to be taken up by the plant's roots - which would indicate to me that there are some that could be (are small enough) ...?

I'd say the best way to do it if you're doing both ornamentals and food plants is to keep two separate piles, but I know that's time/ space consuming. I tend to believe sally's building block theory, but would hate to be wrong.

I have in the past used sawdust from a 100 year old saw mill. the sawdust turned out to have either walnut, and/or cresote in it. It killed all of the plants I used it on.

I found that the chinese wisteria is poisonous when I got a little goat to clean up my property. When she got down to the wisteria (and camellias which I told her not to eat) she began to thow up.

I know that grazing is the best way to control kudzu, and the chinese wisteria is sort of like kudzu in its invasive ness and the pea pods it produces. I was hoping I could "cardboard compost" it.

Oh my. My son is a carpenter and I was going to ask him to save me a little sawdust. It is either pine or ash. Will that be ok

Well, creosote is now illegal to use, so unless he's chopping up old telephone poles, you're good. Walnut had the jugolone which inhibits the growth of other plants, so....

.... you should be good, too, with the pine or ash - just make sure it's throughly composted (sorry to repeat myself, but the decomposition process of wood steals nitrogen from the surrounding soil, so that can kill your plants, too) as long as it isn't the pressure treated type it's fine. If it is pressure treated, it's probably not going to break down easily and they add some pretty nasty chemicals in the process, so I don't know how that would be in food beds. If you don't get a better answer than mine, I'd skip it.

no pressure treated wood dust in food beds ,or anywhere- you might decide to grow something edible there later.