At the beginning of the season, I screwed up. I mixed up my blue cream, yellow pear and beef steak tomato seedlings. As a result of that screw up, I made the decision to not single stem them immediately and wait to do it later in the season. After the best growing season I have ever had, I am dealing with the consequences of my decision to let my tomatoes grow wild in the garden. Lets dig into my single stem screw up and how I got myself into this pleasantly, difficult predicament.

The Original Plan, Single Stem

I mixed up my tomatoes last year too. Last year, I single stemmed all my tomatoes and got significantly reduced yields from my beef steaks. My total was less than half of what I got this year, from half as many plants.

As a result of my single stemming disaster from last year, my original plan was to single stem my Blue Cream and Yellow Pear tomatoes. I was going to lightly cut my beefsteak as they are semi-determinate. After playing musical tomatoes during transplant, I knew I was screwed. How do you single stem a tomato when you don’t know which is which?

The New Plan, Temporary Growing Wild

My solution was simple. I would let them grow and start fruiting. When they fruit, I will know which is which. When summer came with its high temps, the plants would stop fruiting as the temp would exceed 85F(29.44C). I could pull the remaining fruit and remove the excess plant mass. They would be single stemmed for Fall. What a perfect plan. What could possibly go wrong.

The New New Plan, When Things Go Wrong

I was waiting for Summer. It never happened, so my plants just kept fruiting and fruiting. Listen, I am not complaining but it did hose my tomato plan. For most of the season, I have watched my tomato plants become more and more vine-y. It is a mess. They are out in the paths, they are flopped over everyone and everything. My cucumbers and tomatoes have been locked in mortal combat as they vine together into a dense mat.

However, everything has been pretty good. My soil is nutrient dense enough to support all these plants. Until the temps started ramping up to 95F (35C) for a few days off and on, the plants were good and healthy. No blossom end rot, no blight, not even any pest pressures. It was strange. After those temps, the blight and the pests came as the plants struggled.

So now, I have a problem. Water is getting scarce as too much is growing too close for the water available at those temps. Blight has come as it always does when the temps rise. I get to have this mess.

So what am I doing? First, I am cutting away as much dead plant matter as I can. Second, I am making makeshift supports for the vines since it eclipses all my trellising options. Otherwise, I am just collecting my fruit and wondering if a real Summer is actually coming.

Do I Regret My Single Stem Screw Up?

But here is the thing. Is this actually a failure? Yes, it is unsightly but my 12 or so plants have been ridiculously productive. Right now, my counter looks like this.

This excludes all the jars of dried tomatoes, the countless salads and out of hand eating. All the sauces and purees that have come from these plants. Every single plant has produced more tomatoes than at any point in years past. Normally, production stops in late June through August. Mine are still going on strong.

What is even crazier is that I might have another 10-15 pounds or so that will be ready just this week. I have new green tomatoes growing.

So no, I do not regret my screw up. I have never allowed my tomatoes to go a whole season with minimal trimming but here we are. It has been an interesting experiment. I have a variety that is suppose to be a wild bush to plant next year. I was concerned if I could manage such a beast of a plant. After this year, I feel confident that I can.

I guess even screwing up can lead to some good things.