It’s a “birdhouse gourd” I grew in my yard. In East Asia, this gourd (Lagenaria siceraria or 瓢箪）is considered an auspicious symbol. These are called hyōtan (the characters above) in Japanese, and used to be also called fukube, which refers to their “lucky” quality. The seeds are from Kitazawa Seed Company, a very old Japanese-American company, established in the early twentieth century. It is the oldest seed company in California.
Photo by Changchun Zhang
