Ah, so I guess it's sweet million running amok in my flower bed. Thing's got at least 30+ tops and sets of fruit... But to answer your question just one or two. This year only one and it's a cherry tomato as well.

Hundreds of gazillions of volunteers.

I've gotten a couple hundred volunteers here, but 3/4 of them are popping up in the compost heap. The other 1/4 are no mystery and certain to be "yellow pear" since that plant produces so many I don't always keep up with them. Whereas the likes of "Cherokee Purple" and "Old German" always make it to my plate.

I'm not nearly as humane as you are, the superfluous seedlings are culled and composted with the rest that saved me the trouble by sprouting there in the first place.

Not often. I practice good fall cleanup. Sometimes a SunGold will be missed and I'll get a bunch right in that spot.

I personally pray for sungold volunteers (black cherry, goliath, pineapple, brandywine, I could go on, lol) I've got about 15 and am waiting to see what they are. I suspect I know and if I'm right, I'll compost....(think they're Juliet, ugh, didn't live up to expectations last yr). The plants I'd like to have volunteer, don't (maybe because I am more vigilant w/ them.......)

Another question: are volunteers always going to be from the prior year's crop or is it possible to have a seed sprout from previous years? I ask because when I give them away I tell people what they possibly could be based on what I grew last year. Has anyone had a volunteer come from something they grew a few years ago?

I have hundreds of volunteers growing in my containers, I use pure compost. I have no idea what variety they might be (besides cherry tomatos) because they all look different. I keep transplanting them into different containers and then I find more. I think that I might be getting some volunteers from two years ago, but can't be sure until I see the ripened fruits. I was thinking about listing them for free on craigslist too. I already have 50 tomato containers and 100's more that need transplanted. I'm running out of space and compost. Also, I'm getting many other volunteers this year, such as cucumbers, cantaloupe and sunflowers etc.

I plant and grow seeds of varieties that I know what they are. All volunteers are ruthlessly pulled out as weeds. I have no time and space to waste on volunteers and I do not want their random pollen polluting my strains and seeds for next year. Besides volunteers are too late to give a good crop. My season is too short.

"...why so many this year but not other years (I'm not doing anything different)?"
It could be weather conditions or perhaps, and more likely, you allowed more tomatoes to fall on the ground last year than you did in years past.

"Another question: are volunteers always going to be from the prior year's crop or is it possible to have a seed sprout from previous years?"
I suppose it is possible, but not very probable.

I have a limited space and only want to grow what I want to grow, so I too pull volunteers. I have however done experiments with saving commercial F1 seeds. Here are my results thus far:
Early Girl - Inconclusive, need to retry.
4th of July - Came back true.
Park's Whopper - Small fruit that didn't taste as good.
Big Beef - Not as productive.
Big Zak - In progress 2008.

Randy

I used to get gazillions of volunteers, taking a word from Trudi, LOL, but back then I was growing in a field where I had usually, about 700 plants.

And that field was plowed under in the Fall by my farmer friend, seeded with winter rye and then plowed under again in the Spring.

For many years I'd chose about 10 volunteers and plant them in a side garden just to see if I could ID what they were. LOL

Other than that any volunteers were quietly euthanized b'c I had enough plants to deal with already and wasn't about to care for mystery tomatoes b/c I could get those just from unintended X pollinations. LOL

Carolyn