This monster castor bean plant helps solve the mystery of Jack and the Bean Stalk — he must have had a castor bean! This plant is much bigger than all my other castor bean plants. You can see a normal castor bean just to the left of the monster with the red ball seed pods. I started growing castor beans to ward off the terrible voles of North Carolina. Instead of buying MoleMax, which uses castor oil but has to be reapplied every few months, the roots of the castor bean have driven the voles from my 3-acre yard. Yea!