[earthing83]

Hello everyone,
I have a fairly vague question but I hope some of you may be able to shed some light on it for me. I have got my first raised beds ready and warming under fleece and have just recived my seeds in the post. I have decided which will be sown indoors and which outdoors. However I'm unsure how many seeds to sow compared to how many  plants you are wanting to end up with. I know that it's best to sow more than needed so the best can be transplanted but does anyone have a general rule of say, sowing double? I am new to this so apologies for the basic question!!

[mumofstig]

I usually sow a quarter more than what i need when i'm sowing indoors.
Outside i'm not so efficient with the little seeds and end up doing a lot of thinning
Big seeds like courgette and pumpkin/squash i plant 2 in the pot/planting station and take out the weakest.
Hope this helps....wait and see what the others do

[peapod]

I usually sow a quarter more than what i need when i'm sowing indoors.
Outside i'm not so efficient with the little seeds and end up doing a lot of thinning
Big seeds like courgette and pumpkin/squash i plant 2 in the pot/planting station and take out the weakest.
Hope this helps....wait and see what the others do

seems about my technique too 
For example I sow 12 seeds if I want 7 or 8 toms
Peas I sow more of if direct sowing and less if potting up due to the mice taking them 

[earthing83]

thankyou to both of you that sounds like a plan. It's funny when you first start (as I'm sure you will remember) I find myself thinking about every decision over and over again. I just want to give everything the best start. So excited to sow the seeds now! Thanks again.

[Stripey_cat]

I normally get close to 100% germination unless there's a problem with the seed, but I don't want to bank on that, so I always sow between 20% and 50% more than I need (more redundancy with fewer plants).  I also, after I dropped all my melon plants last year, try to split each variety where that's possible, so that one accident will only wipe out half the stock.