Advice, please, on yew shavings in compost

[Derwent Woodturning club]

One of our members has just realised that she put some yew shavings in her compost last year and that compost has just been spread on the vegetable garden. She is concerned that the taxins (poisons) in the yew will be taken up by the vegetables and could poison her family.

My initial thought is that, if the proportion of yew in the original shavings was relatively low, and that the compost has matured for several months and is now spread relatively thinly in the soil, the amount of toxin taken up by the plants will be minimal.

I have seen earlier posts about laburnum shavings being used as a weed killer but I guess that was ALL laburnum. And general advice not to use yew for anything that will be used with food, unless it is well sealed, but this situation is somewhat different.

Any commments and advice would be appreciated.

[burywoodturners]

If there is a lot it may affect the plants, yew poisons any thing growing under it. I doubt if the amount in her bin is enough to affect either her plants or her family.
Ron

[Dave.G.]

Any toxins present will be broken down in the composting process. Even spread neat as a mulch the plant wouldn't take in anything that was toxic to it. (with the exception of man made chemicals like herbicide)

[Bryan Milham]

Only the Green bit's of Yew are toxic, so as said above it should be no problem.

Laburnum is also toxic and I have had to race tree surgeons to them to get good bits, I'm told it's loved by gardeners as mulch as it see's off snails & slugs (no personal proof of that though).

[davidbrac]

this is one of those posts where your bound to get different ideas.  I would agree that any toxins will breakdown as it turns to compost. However l wonder how broken down the yew is after 12 months l added some pine shaving to last years compost and they haven't broken down yet.

In my old allotment l used to make the paths out of green shaving l used oak, yew, ash etc over the years and never had a problem

[Eric Harvey]

I lost 2 laburnums to snails and slugs,they eat the leaves as the buds open,then the tree keeps trying to replace the lost leaves,and the cycle begins again until the tree s weakened and died,they were young trees though,as for yew in the compost,I`d err on the safe side and not use it where food is grown,just in case.

[Derwent Woodturning club]

Hi Everyone,
Just wanted to thank everyone for their comments so far. It's raised a few interesting points for discussion aside from those on this forum. One was that several of us have put shavings (including those from turned yew) into the council's brown (compostable) waste bin. Now do I telephone the council and say we might have contaminated their compost, or rely on the fact that they are processing tons of waste, so our shavings will be a minuscule percentage.
If anyone else has any suggestions, comments or similar experiences, please carry on posting, but I can't thank all the individual posts, so please take that as said.

[Dave.G.]

I don't think you need to notify your local authority. The volume of waste they process means their compost "heaps" can generate tremendous heat and that destroys pretty much anything organic that goes through the system.
I was taught not to put any poisonous material on your compost bin if it was going to be used for food production but that was 20+ years ago and is now regarded as an old wives tale.