I too would like to know how and when to safely transplant young castor bean plants that I am starting from seeds from last year's plant. I have soaked and planted 8 seeds in one large pot. Also...can I harvest the pods before they burst so I don't have to look for them all over the place? If so when do I know its time before they burst? I would like to put them in a plastic bag so they will burst in there. Lastly....how long can I keep the seeds? I still have many seeds left from last year and would like to save them. Thanks Terri

I've gone back and re-read this thread and would like to offer a few qualifications regarding the making of mesquite bean flour. The thread reveals that how the flour is made depends on how much and what quality of flour is desired. If someone wants a cup or two here and there, a blender will do the job--to a point. A blender will break down the soft part of the beans but leave the stringy outer layer, the leathery outer casing of the bean, and many of the hard interior beans. A blender powders about a 1/4 of the bean and leaves out a lot of fiber and protein. A blender can be used to re-blend and re-blend until the whole bean has been broken down; but this process will eventually kill the blender. If someone wants to process a lot of beans, an electric garden mulcher will do about the same thing as a blender on a much larger scale. This morning I ran a few pounds of beans through my mulcher, screened the result, and then ran what didn't screen one more time for a second screening. The result was a tasty flour but still a lot of waste. I have tried to get it all, i.e., turn the whole pod into flour hence my acquisition of a hammer mill. But as I may have noted in my previous post, the result is a little gritty and I think I need to revise my process and allow more waste. The sharp hull of the interior seed needs to go as well as the leathery husk that surrounds the interior sharp hull. My quandry, at the moment, is that I believe the interior seed contains the bulk of the protein and I trying to figure out a way to get that protein without the hull. This morning, spent in experimentation, led me to believe that I can run the mesquite beans through the mulcher, then run them through the mill with the largest screen--this seems to knock the interior seed out of its leathery outer covering. I think that with the right screening I may be able to extract the seed from the bulk of the waste and then run that through the mill with a finer screen and then screen the interiour seed heart from its hull. I suppose that all sounds somewhat convoluted, it is. It might be that I'm working too hard to extract more than needed from the mesquite bean flour. As noted above, two runs through the mulcher and a good screen gives me a tasty flour--I just hate to throw away what may be the most valuable part of the bean's food value. Forgive me if I've gone on too long. I'm five years into this process and still haven't gotten it all figured out. Maybe tomarrow?

When you do home food storage like I do, old beans can be a challenge if you don't rotate your stock in a timely manner. Add to that, you can't always be sure when your beans were harvested and how long, and under what conditions, they have been warehoused before you purchased them and place them into storage. Beans store best in cool temperatures away from heat and light. Since the original posting of this thread I've added two more methods for preparing them to my arsenal of choices. The first method is sprouting them before cooking and the second method is brining. "Sprouting decreases the total carb content and the starch content, increases the dietary fiber and increases the digestibility." Sprouting beans takes the "noise" out of them. If the beans won't sprout well, then they are too old for cooking using standard cooking methods and I'll mill them into bean flour and use them that way. I now sprout all lentils before cooking to increase the nutrition, and I will also sprout them and then dehydrate them for even faster cooking times. Brining is a method I learned watching America's Test Kitchen (link below). I especially like brining when I use the beans whole in a salad or entree and I want a creamy soft bean that doesn't blow apart during cooking. A couple other things to note after re-reading this thread - the minerals in hard water affect beans and adding baking soda is a way to neutralize hard water. However, "Amounts of baking soda over 1âÂÂ8 teaspoon per cup of beans may destroy the thiamine (Vitamin B1) in beans. Thiamine is a valuable nutrient and one reason why beans have a reputation for being nutritious." So using bottled or filtered water (not distilled) may be the best answer for anyone who has hard water to contend with. -Grainlady Here is a link that might be useful: How to Brine Beans

Sol warned "you should be swinging from your ceiling fans in no time". Thanks for the heads-up BUT no one warned me that I would speed and risk getting stopped by the sheriff! I usually drink my addiction as soon as I get up but this AM I was late and drank it before getting in the car to go to the gym. Thankfully it was the same sheriff from the turtle incident; he gave me a verbal warning. I guess he thought speeding wasn't as harmful as turtle relocation. Michael, I was hoping you would chime in as you are the coffee guru. I'm two months in and still experimenting using various suggestions you all have offered. I... like medium roast purchased a grinder prefer medium ground add a pinch of salt to the batch add sweetener and flavoring to the batch so I don't have to bother with that every morning just add the creamer don't like Fresh Market coffees accidentally bought a pound of decaf and notice the difference but didn't know what the problem was until my batch was used up and I went back to the bag to use the remainder of the pound and saw that it was decaffeinated bought 2 pounds online from CoffeeAM; haven't tried it yet but the company seems to offer many options I am definitely hooked which is scary 'cause what if this was something harmfully addictive?