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Here is a volunteer gourd going for broke in our front yard. It got a late start and for sentimental reasons (we do like gourds) Vidya didn’t weed it out when she was working in the flower bed.

For some reason, a groundhog didn’t chew it back before it managed to get a start up the side of the Blue Spruce. It then did what gourds do and set out to conquer the world.

It hasn’t set any fruit yet and despite the unseasonably late warm spell we have had, it won’t have time to mature any gourds this year before it is killed by frost. Or any other year for that fact, due to its status as an annual. It only has a limited window to propagate itself by producing seed and this one, with its grandiose ambitions, has missed it.

What is wrong with ambition? It has to be tempered with practicality. Gourds grow more naturally in warmer climates with longer growing seasons. When it starts out it first tries to spread far and wide. This is male energy.

Gourds have both male and female flowers. The primary vines that a gourd plant sends out have male flowers. Female flowers are on the laterals and sublaterals. If too much energy goes into the primaries, by the time the laterals develop and female flowers set, it can, in more temperate climes, be too late to get pollinated and still have time to mature fruit before winter. The gourd perpetuates itself through seed. Too much male energy makes a good show in the short run, but fails the gourd in the long run.

Similarly, we can see that an organization that overemphasizes male energy will put on a good show for a while but will eventually die out unless household life is given more balance.When I was still able to grow gourds, I would go around when the primary vines reached about 10 feet and nip the soft growing point. This puts the energy into the laterals and initiates earlier fruit set, greatly increasing yield. The vine will still reach the same eventual size, but more of it will be productive.

Still, it has been fun seeing this gourd do its thing. While jaded suburbanites and urbane city dwellers may roll their eyes at how boring it sounds, watching a gourd vine take 3-4 months to embrace a evergreen is actually pretty interesting, both literally and metaphorically.