CLOSED: CLOSED: Plain castor beans - too many!

For S.A.S.E - Bought these this past fall on ebay. Hate to see any seed go to waste!

Hi! I would be interested is some, please. Will send sase. Thank you so much!
Could you dmail me the address/

This message was edited May 19, 2008 12:32 PM

How many do you have? I will take some.

Bubba, I can send you about 15.

They won't fit in an envelope will they?

Hi Rosy, Nice of you to share. I will send you a SASE tomorrow morning. André

Hi again. I didn't see your address in the exchange. Can you be so kind as to d-mail it.Thanks

Roseysunset I will take those 15 beans but let me know if I need to send a sase or if I need to send something bigger.

Castor beans are small seeds Bubba and will fit in an envelope.

Oh. The beans i bought this spring were like a pinto bean. Give me your address and I will send you an envelope tomorrow.

There are several different kinds - I am planting 4 kinds this year. The pinto bean size is for the yellow one - these seeds are for the green one. I will have all 4 kinds in the fall - if they all grow!
Yello Impala
Zanzi Palm
Giant Zanzibar
and Pink

I planted mine because I read moles avoid yards that have them. Do you know if this is true? This is my first year to plant them.

Hmmm.- I don't have moles but I believe that is true. In fact one of these discussion forums was just talking about it. Let me see if I can find it for you.

I planted them on the east side of my house, part of the south side, part of the west side, and part of the west property line. I am going to plant your seeds on the south property line and part of the east property line. I am telling you, I have moles bad. Their runs even go under my house from the back yard to the front. I had trouble planting asiatice border lilies in my south flower bed because everytime I dug a hole there would be a mole run in it. I have shrubs planted along my property line that have big mole holes only a few inches from the base of the plant. I am worried the roots are being exposed to air.

Bubba - If you will look in the Propagation Forum there is a thread titled something like - should I pre-soak a castor bean. Toward the end they talk about mole problems and planting castor beans for it. Wish I knew how to just snip the link for you. Also more castor bean growers - maybe the possiblity of more seeds for you. We have armadillos but they are not the terrible problem that moles are. You can also search forums on the right upper corner of this page and just look for moles. I sure hope the castor beans work that way for you - how awful to have something dig up what you plant. Come to think of it I had something dig up a Guacamole Hosta bulb back in April -made me sick. But never figured out what did it and it was one incident. Could a been a skunk too.

Or maybe a squirrel?

Don't have any squirrels in this area yet. There is a skunk that travels through here on a regular basis. This is a new subdivision and I can't help but think this double wide sits in her old path. It was such a neat digging - just scooped the root division out - did not disturb the earth around it. Ah! Maybe a human marauder after my prized hosta find! lol

Never heard of guacamole hosta. Makes me hungry! What does it look like? Be careful with the skunk. When my oldest son ( now 26 ) was in grade school he used to walk to a friends house to hitch a ride to school. One morning he saw a skunk with its head stuck in a bottle. Well. Being the good samaratin that he is, he stopped and helped the skunk out of the bottle. Skunk repayed him by spraying him. His clothes had to be permanently burried. Couple of years later we moved into this house. I used to have some outdoor cats so I kept a cool whip bowl on the porch with catfood in it. Walk buy the back door one night to go to the kitchen and discovered a skunk on the porch with its head deep in the cool whip bowl. I quitely eased on by the door (the screen on the storm door was open!) 'til I got behind it and SLOWLY closed the door. Discovered later there wasn't one but two! And they lived underneath the house next door!

Yes, leaving pet food out (or in your GARAGE!!) can be a MAJOR draw for skunks.

LOL - thats funny. Whenever I smell her, I make sure and give her wide berth. Last month I spotted a skunk during the day running erratically through the back yard, and up and down the neigbors driveway - then under a house. My first thought was a rabid skunk! Well, we call the SO dept and out comes a very young deputy that proceeds to tell us that in NORMAL behaviour for a skunk! And that we should not worry ourselves about it. We kept a careful look out the next couple days and did not see her again. Bet she died . But isn't that something about that deputy!

Here is hosta http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/2908/ I read about it SOMEWHERE on the net - that is was very fragrant when it bloomed and bloom time lasted a bit. So it is not very pretty but smells good.

Isn't that weird! My son in now a leiutenant at the sheriffs department here!

We have a friend that purposely feeds raccoons dog food. I thought -how neat I would love to see that. After seeing it I thought -nope! She sprinkles the dog food along her patio which is surrounded by trees. There are chairs to set on and amid kid running around with fizzling sparklers and a patio fire and a lot of loud talking, these raccoons slowly climbed down the trees and crept forward until they were able to reach out with their hands and grab the food. And then sat their and ate until it was gone. I am a nature lover deluxe, but that was a bit creepy.

I am quite sure your son would not have given us that advice Bubba!

If you have any extra green castor beans still; I would like some. I have the burgandy purple leaved ones. So, a variety is always good :)

Yes, I still have more seeds. I will dmail you my address. I hope all 4 kinds I planted come up. I love this plant!

Rosy.. you must be a nightowl like me..lol
I would love some of your castor bean seeds if you have any left. That mole story makes me want to plant them everywhere!!
Please dmail me!
Thanks,
Becky

The seeds I am getting from roseysunset make 3 kinds for me. Now it's going to bug me to know there's another one out there I don't have. (Ha ha) I planted ricinus communis (red castor bean), and one I got from Gurney's that is supposed to be green. I know it is a different variety from the one roseysunset is sending me because the seeds look like pinto beans and would not fit in an envelope. What am I missing?

Rosy,
Got that sase out to you this morning... LOL Thanks for the dmail.. I know I sounded confused... I was till after I hit the send button to you..lol Thanks for your generous offer to us!
Becky

Bubba, are you thinking of the actual seedpod that holds the seeds? I can see where a big seedpod would not fit in an envelope - but plain pinto bean sized beans why wouldn't they fit?

I just figured it would make the envelope awful lumpy for mailing. That's all.

You can write on the envelope, please hand cancel and it will be OK. Sometime, when I send lumpy stuff out like that I wrap a little bubble around the seeds or send it in a card, but I still write hand cancel.

Do you have any more seeds, I would like just a few. What color are the flowers?

How many kinds of Castors are there?

And if there are many colors I would like to start collecting them. I'm up for trades and SASE or SASBE or what not. I have extra castor beans from November.

Here's an up close picture.

What colors are yours bsgardens? I won't have any to trade myself 'til next year because this is my first year to plant them, but I am interested to see if there are some out there I don't have. Is there a purple one? Or is it just the red plant with purple variations to it? I have the red one and the green one. Yours will be a welcome addition, rosysunset. I can now cover more property line. Although, so far it doesn't seem to be working. I went out yesterday and found new mounds. And I am always finding new holes. One summer, I even tried something I got from Atwoods that looks like a dynamite stick. You light it, and bury it smoking end first in the hole. Its supposed to be poisenous to them. Smoke was coming up out of the ground all around my backyard. They are still here. I am about ready to go buy traps, its just I don't know what to do with them once they are in the trap. I just don't have the intestinal fortitude to bash them in the head.

I'm not too sure what mine is called. But the stalk is red and the leaves are purple and burgndy and drk green. I think Linda seems to be one of the most knowledgible (I can;t spell today) people I've come across. I am still learning. They would be pretty together. I'm going to add linda's Green next to the What I call purple/burgandy ... its probably a red. D-mail me ... I'll send ya some. Last year we let our miniature Pincher dig after the moles... She caught several. Now I have Min Pin size trenches I've been trying to fill ever since. She's great at tilling the soil ... sand in my case ... and catching the critters... but the yard looks like were digging for irrigation lines ... lol ... We've tried alot of different things also. I'm definitly going to plant castors all over the yard this year. I have several babies I planted a few days ago. Once my castor pods dry I'm taking 1/2 of them and planting them also. My husband wanted to trap them also at one point; ya know the catch and release thing... but to release into another certain persons yard ... lol ... we never caught anything in the traps. lol ...

I caught a mouse in a trap once that I discovered wasn't dead. Nasty little things, but I still hated seeing him suffer. I thought it would eventually die, so I release it from the trap into a bucket. It was still alive the next day. Couldn't stand it, so I had one of my boys take it into the field behind me (probably where it came from anyway) and dump it there to die. So that was the first thing I thought of when I thought of buying traps. I thought if I caught one I would have the boys take them into the country and dump it there. I figure out in the middle of nowhere it can't hurt anyone. It's just getting them to do it. They are grown now. My oldest would probably do it for me, but the youngest will complain because he won't want it in his new car.

LOL ... My boys unfortunatelly would kill it. But so will my dogs. My cats kill the mice and rats when they catch them. Unfortunatelly the cats and dogs will also kill the birds and lizards and toads ... :( We are always sacing toads and lizards ... the birds have wised up and look for the cats ...

I discovered a frog in one of my flower beds for the first time this year! Actually, I grabbed him when I was cleaning the dead leaves out of the bed. I screamed. It echoed all through the neighborhood. About a week later it happend again in a different area of the same garden. Again I screamed. He didn't move, but hunkered down further into the dirt. I looked at him and said, "You're just like Bubba!" (Bubba is my cat. He's ALWAYS sitting on the floor in a high traffic area. Instead of moving, he hunkers down on the floor like he's digging in.)

LOL ... Frogs are interesting creatures. My sister is scared of frogs. They freak her out. I grew to love them. They have eaten soo many unwanted bugs ... about 3 weeks ago I was in the garden at night and I was barefoot ... which I probably shouldn't have been ... but I had a toad jump onto my foot, It scared me I couldn't help but scream .. lol ...