I'd say 4-5 years if kept dry and at room temp or a little cooler. Also, you can of course harvest your own this year. Just be sure safely stored from pets and/or children...very toxic if not fatal. josh

PLEASE....Tell me how to retive the seeds from my castor bean plants and how to keep them until planting!!!

To collect seeds, wait until the seed pod dries, the individual pods have 3-4 chambers in them and are hard to open. There will be large seeds that are marbled and look like pinto beans. Some will fall and live over winter and grow on their own. Keep them dry until you are ready to plant them. Some years the seeds germinate 100% and some not nearly as good, but there will always been a few that grow.

Lazy castor seed harvesting:

Cut the whole seed stalk ( many pods) when at least half have gone from red to brown and have started to split open.

Put this stalk in a 5 gallon pail.

Leave in a warm dry place

Seeds will explode out of pods when ripe.

Package up loose seeds from bottom of pail.

tada!

Karen