I do use mushroom compost, but not bagged stuff. We have a very large commercial mushroom producer in town and you can get the stuff in bulk for very cheap. I read the article. It makes some good points but also makes assumptions that are not universally true. He compares shroom compost unfavorably to peat moss and to straw - are you kidding me??? Peat moss and straw have no nutritional content, which is what he disses shroom compost for. Peat moss is harvested unsustainably, through what amounts to strip mining or mountain top removal mining. And peat moss is bad for your soil here in the summer-dry Pacific Coast. It repels water in summer, and makes the soil waterlogged in the rainy winters. Straw? he can't be serious. Straw is a mulch, not a soil amendment. Shroom compost has the advantage of being thoroughly decomposed organic matter, which is exactly what our soils need. Maybe in other places that's not so critical. Our soils are recently glaciated and have very little organic matter. My garden soil has only the organic matter that I add - when I did a particle analysis on moving in, there was no measurable organic matter. His point about the pesticides used in mushroom production are good points if valid. (since his comparisons to peat moss and straw are not valid I have to question everything else too.) I've never asked the local company just what, how much, and how often they use pesticides. I'm not trying to be certified organic. But if I were, it would be good to know that mushroom compost may have pesticide residues. Keep in mind that these things do break down over time! especially in a high organic matter environment. High pH, again, is not a problem in our area since our native soil is very acid. In alkaline areas people don't use things like cow manure due to pH problems, and cow manure tends to be a major ingredient in shroom compost. Kayli, please note that the author of the article doesn't say that mushroom compost contains all these pesticides. All he says, is that commercial shroom producers are licensed to use them. He does not say that they do use them, or how much, or how often, or whether he's had shroom compost tested for residues, or anything. I do give him points for honesty but it requires a careful parsing of his text as he's really trying to persuade without out and out lying. His conclusions may be valid but he doesn't present data to allow us to draw our own conclusions. In my area, roses and plants in general love mushroom compost. There's nothing in this article that persuades me not to use it as an amendment to add valuable, thoroughly composted, weed-free organic matter. In other areas, it would depend on the quality of the source and the characteristics of the native soil. I don't use it for winter protection as it is too soggy for our conditions. I've lost roses to canker when I've tried it that way. In colder drier winters it is probably fine.

I've often used half finished compost and never had a problem. Mine is usually less decomposed than yours sounds. I dig a trench. throw it in, cover it over and plant.

Like Kimmsr, I use compost for seed starting, and I also get lots of unplanned volunteers in the compost pile. As long as the compost is finished or mostly-finished, it shouldn't be a big problem. You certainly wouldn't want to use "hot" compost with your seeds. :-) As to the seeds themselves, as mentioned above a lot depends on the type of seed, soil temperature, and the age of the seeds. Many times older seeds take longer to germinate and have a less successful germination rate. It's my understanding that carrot seeds can normally take 2-3 weeks to germinate; longer if the soil is too cold and/or the seeds are old. This is based on info I've read, not on personal experience. Last fall I started a new compost area that was to be turned into a vegetable patch this spring. Having started it late in the autumn, there were only a few inches of organic material applied to the ground and it never got hot enough to fully finish. I turned it once or twice in April as the ground started thawing, and the grass clippings had very little deterioration; they were mostly intact and kind of mucky like grass clippings get when you pile them up. No additional material had been added to the area since last December. But that didn't stop the volunteers of cucumbers, lettuce, and, lastly, tomatoes from germinating -- thanks to those leftover, unpicked fruits that were thrown in from the garden last October. [I'm used to tomato volunteers, but the cukes and lettuce were surprises.] I can't really speak to experience with carrots (maybe I'll grow some next year), but there could be a number of factors that influenced low and slow germination. All the best.

Yep, just fine to compost. If they weren't, everything would eventually become toxic, which of course it hasn't. Somehow Nature has ways of sorting things out. It's almost like magic! It sounded to me like the only reason you were asking 'poisonous or not' was in terms of composting rather than eating. But I second ericwi's advice if you are looking for edible ones. There are some excellent resources online. My state conservation dept. actually put a fact sheet with several dozen edible types that grow here. I don't rely just on that but online resources like mushroomexpert.com will give you all sorts of tests so that you know 5 ways to Sunday that a shroom is safe to eat.