In my experience, castor bean does not need to be WS - fine to start right now (I started mine a week or so ago and they are starting to come up - no soaking, just keep the potting soil from drying out). I always start them in 4" pots and when they get a couple of sets of leaves, I plant them out. Some in the garden, many in large half barrel plants I have.

I am pretty sure you could also DS them (maybe soemone else has expereince?) but my only concern would be the soil temps. We are having such a slow to warm up spring here - I'd be afraid the DS wouldn't work as well cause the soil temp might tell the seed not to germinate, it's too cold?

Anyway, good luck with this fabulous plant! Always gets so many comments in my garden!

Ditto what nan said. I'm going to put a couple of seeds in a jug today.

PV

I read somewhere that castor beans remain viable for up to 2-3 years, so if they are much older than that, you might have little or no germination. I actually pre-sprouted mine this year; put them in a plastic sandwich bag along with a damp paper towel. Didn't take them too long to sprout, once they did, I potted them up.

I always ds them. Never had issues. It grows upto 5ft tall in my area. Haven't had them for 2 yrs now. I was actually planning to buy seeds until I saw a seedling in front yard. :) So happy when I saw it. I just hope my neighbor's kid won't accidentally step on it.

Fwiw - I planted 6 castor bean seeds a few weeks ago. They were 3 year old seeds. All 6 germinated. They've been transplanted into pots and the ground and are all thriving.