Where did you get your compost, or did you make your own?
Let us see some pictures of this great plant!

For the second year running, I got the compost from STL Composting in Fenton, Missouri, just outside St. Louis. They have the good stuff fur sure! This ain't your bagged Walmart compost--chuckle. I had to bag this stuff myself after their tractor dumped a cubic yard (or 27 cubic feet) onto the ground. Time-consuming but well worth it for the gooood stuff.

I forgot to add that we're about 3 weeks behind because our first set of tomato seedlings died inside the styrofoam cups 3 weeks after germinating because they were out in the sun too long one day at such a tender age. So this second set of plants were seeded into styrofoam cups on April 4.

So far, there has been just one side-dressing of fertilizer applied since the tomato plants were transplanted into the garden from the cups. The side-dressing happened almost 4 weeks ago.

A photo of this plant probably wouldn't wow you much because we don't have much garden space, so each plant is separated by only 2.5 feet, instead of the usual 3. So the tomato plants just look like one big mosh of leaves all growing into each other. A plant's branches extend into it's neighbor's space and vice versa.

I don't think the green tomatoes would stand out much against the green leaves, unless a closeup photo were taken, but then you'd see just a few tomatoes instead of all 70. Maybe when the tomatoes redden, it might become a really good photo, I hope.

That's awesome. I still have to find a good compost company for my raised beds that I'm building.

Do tomatoes always have to be started by seed indoors, and then transplanted? Can they be successfully direct sown into the raised bed?

My problem is that I can start the seeds in cups indoors, but I am busy and out of the house during the hardening off period. If I place the seedlings in the ground, they will most likely die like yours did.
So I can't properly harden the seedlings off with a gradual time outside increase.

Direct sow into raised beds or buying starts seem to be the only options for me.

I can't answer your question about directly sowing tomato seeds into the garden because I'm not a tomato authority, but it's a very good question. Maybe somone can answer it for you.

Without knowing any more, my guess would be that it is a Determinate Tomato. The one variety that I plant will get as tall as it's going to get, and then all energy goes into fruit set and ripening, much like you are describing.

Do you know the variety or if it is a determinate variety?

Steve

Well, I don't know the variety but I went outside this morning to do a more thorough count. I had thought that maybe yesterday's count of 68 tomatoes may have been overblown--maybe I was mistakenly including some tomatoes from the neighbor plant's branches. But no, there was no mistake. I actually undercounted yesterday. This morning I counted 84 tomatoes, small to medium size. It wouldn't surprise me if there are upwards of 90 tomatoes on that plant.

Its 6 closest neighbor plants all have tomatoes in the 20's count and the 30's count, but they're bigger, rounder tomatoes. I bet the 84-count plant is a different variety--either that or it's somehow a mutant.

The shape of the toms on the 84-count plant isn't as round as the toms on the other plants. The shape is just slightly oblong, by which I mean the height of the tomatoes is ever so slightly greater than the width of the tomatoes. Kind of reminds me of the shape of tear drops but no way as oblong as tear drops. Just slightly oblong. There is no way this variety is the "cherry/grape" tomato variety. These tomatoes are much, much, much bigger than the "cherry/grape" variety of toms, but they're smaller than my other "regular" tomatoes.

I'll take a picture soon. Will photobucket.com or some other sites accept a 1.2 to 1.9 megapixel image? I don't want to put the photo on Google Plus, Facebook, Flickr, etc. I'd prefer the Photobucket and ImageShack places--if they'll accept megapixel-sized images.

uscjusto: pop over to the wintersowing forum. I think the method will work well for you, giving more developed earlier start than regular direct sow but w/o hardening off issues. tho you dont list your zone. DS is tough in my Z5 garden w/o really cutting into grow time

Zone 9 northern CA.
I'll check out wintersowing. Thx.

IME oftentimes there is no clear reason why a particular specimen will hugely outdo others. IOW, there is often a good explanation for failure but not for ravishing success.

It is a similar phenomenon with careers, no?

Great news. We picked our first 2 red tomatoes on Thursday of last week. They came from the plant that's apparently a cross between last year's "regular"-sized big tomatoes and last year's cherry/grape tomatoes.

Even better news. Those 2 tomatoes taste dee-lish! They're so juicy and flavorful. I was surprised how good they are, after reading I might be disappointed. I hope their seeds produce true next year. Wow, that 84-count plant (it probably has over a 100 toms on it now I guess) not only produces tasty tomatoes but it produces them fast. We have another 4 toms ripening red right now, and, although we have lots of toms on our "regular," big-sized tomato plants, they're all still green as of today I think.

By the way, the size of the first 2 red toms on that 84-count plant was about 1.5 inches tall and 1.5 inches wide. They're pretty round. I guess each tomato is about the size of 2 ping pong balls.