Of course it’s wrong.

It’s misguided.

It lacks discipline and demonstrates poor planning, shows impulse control and neglect.

I’m letting passionfruit vines take over my yard even though I know it will end badly.

This vine is establishing a subterranean network that’s getting out of hand, popping up in all places.

In all of the places, ever. And it’s only its second year in my yard.

This is going to get worse before it gets better, if it gets better.

I’m still thinking, oooo, I like passionfruit. It’s pretty. It’s tasty, It’s medicinal.

It’s taking over.

I have a passionfruit-draped espaliered peach tree now.

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I have passionfruit in my carrots.

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Passionfruit in my beets.

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Passionfruit in my blackberries and climbing up my tomato cages.

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Yet I’m still, . . . look at those pretty flowers, look at all those fruits, when is the passionfruit going to get ripe?

I’m the redacted child from a first draft of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, turning into a human/passionfruit hybrid because of her weakness for an odd fruit.

And it’s not just the passionfruit.

It’s the tulsi.

I love tulsi. While I don’t literally worship tulsi, like some, I adore it and respect it, and I’m letting that, too, run rampant through my garden.

One day it may come to a reckoning between the representatives of two religions.

They would likely co-exist, one sprawling, one twining/climbing.

Me, slurping passionfruit and swigging gallons of tulsi tea.

When a plant is somewhere you don’t want it to be, or crowding out something that’s supposed to be there, it can be defined as a weed. But what if the “weed” is as desirable as that which it’s crowding out?

This gets to a couple of aspects of too much of a good thing; when something is good, but it creates an imbalance (I can’t survive on passionfruit alone, I need tomatoes, too), and an excess (I can’t use that much tulsi).

As usual, it boils down to planning, discipline, and common sense.

After this season, I promise myself, I will take back control, keep the passionfruit in its place, and regulate the sprawl of the tulsi.

Passionfruit recipes please.

–Daisy