Depends on what you're planting. I do drop a light handful of mulch on larger seeded things like squash or beans, mostly just to keep the surface soil from becoming concrete when the sun heats up the damp soil. If I'm planting tiny seeds like lettuce or carrots, I usually just cover the seeds with a layer of bagged potting mix and water, water, water so that it doesn't dry out until they germinate. You could also put something like a board over them to keep the direct sun off until they germinate - slowing drying of the surface soil - just make sure you are checking them and pull it as soon as they come up.

Once they germinate, I start slowly piling mulch around them as they grow.

Agree it isn't an either or situation. It depends on what you use for mulching and it varies with the seed. As a general rule you can lay down a light cover of one of the light weight grassy mulches like hay or straw or dried grass clippings on top of the seeds and then you build it up in layers as the plants grow. Of course if using plastic or coarse wood chips as mulch that approach won't work.

Many find it easier to just heavily mulch the entire area before planting anything and then just pull the mulch back a bit to clear the row/planting area when ready to plant. Lightly recover the seeds and as they grow just rake more of the mulch you pulled back back into place.

Dave

We are planting a few things, but mostly I want this info for the future.

One thing we recently planted was papaya seeds. We planted 20 each of 2 varieties in 4 separate spots. We got 3 to germinate in three spots. All 3 look healthy, but we wanted 4, so going to try again, pull the mulch back, put 10 more seeds in the dirt, cover with a board (not hard to do since the area is depressed between rocks, so the board will not touch the soil), and lift it when the irrigation comes on.

Thanks for all the great advice!