I was dreaming about ripe tomatoes growing in my back yard last night. It really is not so far-fetched, because I have tomato plants growing in my raised beds. The beds are unique because I made them out of an old travel car topper. I disconnected the top from the bottom, drilled some big holes for drainage and to give the worms access (don't cringe, you need the worms), filled it with dirt from the "giant's grave" (you'll have to go back to my earlier blog post about that), and my tomatoes are thriving.

Last year, my tomatoes did great but something got at them before I had a chance to harvest them. This year, my daughter's in-laws gave me four plants for an Illinois tomato (thanks Diane and Chuck) . The plants are growing well in my raised bed and have produced several green tomatoes. One day this week I am going to put some chicken wire around them in an effort to protect them from the birds and creatures that want to keep them for themselves.

The tomatoes I planted last year were heirlooms (Cherokee purple, yellow tomatoes, beefsteak) and some of the half-eaten fruit fell back into the bed and left seeds which have now started to germinate. I have loads and loads of baby tomato plants now, but I don't know what kind they are. I have to wait for them to grow and produce fruit before I know... but I do know for sure they are tomatoes.

That is how my stories work, too — there are all sorts of seeds of thought that I write down on paper and I have to wait for those seeds to germinate and grow to know what I've got. Sometimes I know what I have, but I still have to let it grow and produce fruit before it is ready to go on stage and be shared. Once the story is shared, there is potential for others to grab some of the seeds and they can grow their own stories.

I dreamed about tomatoes last night. What seeds of story are you growing?