Leaning tower of Gourdville

Late this evening I noticed that the bamboo tee-pee tower was uprooted and listing badly over the back fence. The only thing that kept it from toppling was that I wired the base “feet” to the 2×12 bed. The front feet were off the ground and the wire was torqued; it appeared to be barely holding them.

It was one of those situations where the modest lean and increasing top heaviness combined to almost take it down.

I got a ladder out and managed to tie some para-cord to the wire lashing where the poles crossed (about 10 feet up) then drove in a fence post 25 feet away on the far side of the asparagus bed that lines up with the tower. I pulled on the para-cord until the tower righted a bit then lashed it to the stake. It creaked and groaned as it slowly straightened up but held together. Unfortunately it was really too dark to get a picture this evening.

I counted 35 gourds that had set so far and am sure I’m missing some more behind all the large leaves. The ones hanging from the trellis are growing noticeably; I’m sure those at the towards the top of the tower have a cumulative weight of at least 20 lbs and increasing. (A better design will be needed if I do this again next year).

The trellis netting hanging gourds from earlier this weekend: