More baby tororo

Day 2 of sprouts, the only decent photo, though you can't see much of what's going on (my head under the plastic.

 Day 3, when Charity came in again to help water.

Kirstin and Mason joined us to gawk.

Day 4, when I worried about them getting TOO hot and steamy in there and basically cooking. I can't quite tell if some sprouts are yellowing, and certainly not all have come up, but I love watching them lean towards the sun. Today I'll check up on them again with Charity.

We call the tororo hibiscus colloquially, even though it's been reclassified since (Abelmoschus manihot). They'll grow, we'll transplant outdoors once they're stronger and we don't risk frost, hoping to resist any critters (which is less of an issue in the urban environment but we still have them!), and as they grow flowers, we'll pinch off the flowers as they go to send energy down to the roots. In the fall, we'll dig up the whole plant for the roots, to clean and freeze in storage until we need it for formation aid. Which is that gooey stuff for Asian papermaking that distributes fibers evenly in water, increases the water's viscosity to allow more time to handle the slurry while forming the actual sheets on the screen, and disappears once the paper is dry. We get it from pounding the roots to wound them, and from those cuts, they will ooze a clear mucilage.

And then hopefully some of us will not get rashes from chemical formation aid on our arms!