Keep it simple, and then keep the salad coming.

Byline: The Register-Guard

CATHY BOUCHER planted her first garden when she was 16 years old. Reading directions on the seed packet that said to work soil to a depth of 8 inches, she dug 8-inch trenches, put seed in the bottom, and sprinkled a light layer of soil on top of the deeply buried seed.

Needless to say, that first garden didn't thrive, but the experience left her with plenty of sympathy for the beginning gardener.

Today, she has her own garden design business, Earthworks Landscape & Design.

Her 10-foot-by-10-foot plan for the beginning garden is extremely simple, requiring almost no investment in materials. Hers is also the cheapest - her detailed price list totaled $46.26, including everything from seeds and starts to fertilizer and trellis material.

Like the other two gardeners, she recommends a salad garden. "You get much more use and value out of salad fixings in a small plot," she says.

Boucher doesn't have any edges or border material in her garden plan. While she likes raised beds, she prefers to do them by simply mounding soil.

"This allows flexibility in changing garden dimensions, costs less and uses less water," she says.

At the center of Boucher's garden is a "flower tower," with a blend of flowering vines (the climbing flower collection from Ed Hume Seeds, $2.99) trellised onto a 7-foot length of 6-foot wire mesh fence, formed into a cylinder and staked down.

On each side of the tower she has a large lettuce bed. Boucher seeds her lettuce, using Territorial Seed Co.'s Super Gourmet Salad Blend ($2.35) broadcast over the whole area, rather than in neat rows.

Thin the lettuce plants as they grow - you can add the thinnings to your dinner salad - and you get more salad per square foot, she says.

A single path leads into the garden from each side; Boucher says to mulch the surface with leaves.

Boucher uses rotted manure to amend the soil in her own garden. If you don't have a source of manure for yours, she suggests blended mint compost from Lane Forest Products, 2111 Prairie Road.

For fertilizer, she recommends All Purpose Vegetable Blend from Down to Earth.

Come fall, you can keep the lettuce beds going by simply continuing to plant more greens. As the weather worsens, you can extend the gardening season by covering the growing beds with clear plastic or, better yet, porous gardening cloth.

Some Lane County gardeners grow cover crops such as clover or field peas during the winter to build up nitrogen in the soil and crowd out weeds.

Boucher doesn't bother. "Cover crops are a hassle for me," she says. "You have to turn them in later. I am more of a mulcher. I get my fall leaves and mulch the whole thing down."

CAPTION(S):

Cathy Boucher raises her beds by just mounding soil.