Composting Rhubarb Leaves
Many folks have been concerned about adding rhubarb leaves to their compost piles. If the leaves are poisonous, then maybe they are bad for compost as well, since rhubarb stalks contain a high concentration of oxalic acid which slightly toxic, right? What actually occurs when rhubarb is added to a compost pile is that the oxalic acid is mostly broken down, diluted and pH balanced rather quickly. People don’t eat compost piles as a rule anyway, and even if a child were to eat compost dirt, there would be problems other than from and remaining oxalic acid from the decomposing rhubarb stalks. Experience has shown that the level of acid does not inhibit the microbial action of composting. Compost piles which were nearly all rhubarb leaves and stalks have decomposed very nicely and the compost has behaved like ordinary compost and no inhibition of plant growth was noticed from the compost.
