Black Nightshade/Deadly Nightshade

My dad had a tomato garden in the back a couple of years ago. The garden is still there but he hasn't grown anything in it for a couple of years. Imagine my surprise when I saw what looked like tomato leaves. I walked over to see if he'd planted it and I saw a plant with little black berries. I thought I knew what it was and went back inside and looked up images, and sure enough, it was nightshade. I think it's a variety called Black Nightshade but not 100% on the variety.

We don't really care what's growing back there now as we're not going to eat it anyway, but I was curious to know if it would be safe to garden in that soil later. Would the root or leaves or other decomposed parts of the nightshade plant taint the soil or poison the soil around the plant?

I was thinking of maybe growing something back there myself but I don't want to grow it in poisoned soil.

I don't think it would do anything like that, as the poison would be in the plant itself and not in the soil surrounding in my opinion, but I wanted to be safe about it and see what other gardeners thought.

Reply to
Rubystars
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I'm not an expert, but given that tomatoes are in the same family as nightshades, I'm not surprised they'd grow where tomatoes did. I presume the soil would be safe for anything that likes the same kind of soil tomatoes do. I would recommend getting rid of the nightshade plant though(by burning it), just so no unsuspecting critter or child eats them in the future, and to prevent it from spreading.

Reply to
Lilah Morgan

Nah, not an issue. The alkaloids compost quite nicely.

Reply to
Kay Lancaster

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