ALEX SEROS and Walter Ulloa's vegetable garden has the design elements of a classical French potager: four rectangular raised beds, divided by gravel pathways, set in a sunny spot not far from the family's kitchen. But instead of the traditional tidy rows of carrot tops, perfectly spaced lettuce heads and coiffed herbs, the organization here is looser and many vegetables are flowering.
"I let a lot go to seed," says John Lyons, the organic vegetable gardener who designed and tends the Pacific Palisades plot. "The flowers attract beneficial insects." He's hoping for some chalcid wasps. "They eat all sorts of aphids," he says.
Aside from the charming and intentional imperfection of the plants, there's something else these four quadrants offer that those in France usually don't: year-round crops.
"The difference between a California kitchen garden and the average French potager is that it doesn't have an off-season," says Lyons, a handsome Irishman who has been installing and tending organic kitchen gardens around Los Angeles for the last three years. "We have a 365-day growing season here. So many people overlook this."
Winter is, in fact, Lyon's favorite time. "It's like spring in most of the Midwest," he says. "And the temperature is ideal to work in."
Though geometric designs are classic, a kitchen garden can be any shape or size. It's rare in an urban environment to have a lot of space to dedicate to growing food, so you "work with what you have," he says.
Find a sunny spot close to the kitchen, and then do what you can. "You can tuck it into a corner of the yard, or it can contour to the shape of your plot," he says. "It can be neat and tidy or free-flowing."
As with the French potager model, Lyons recommends placing the garden close to the kitchen for easy access. In addition to herbs and vegetables, there should be cutting flowers in the beds to provide beauty at the table. Lyons likes to plant dwarf, semi-dwarf or espaliered fruit trees nearby as well.
"Regular trees would overwhelm the space," he notes. And, he adds, every garden needs a fountain and a bird feeder. "Birds are very, very important for pest control."
A year-round garden, however, doesn't mean there isn't down time for some vegetables. "We can't really grow lettuces and spinach outside of winter." But because the Seros-Ulloa family has become accustomed to the taste of homegrown, Lyons is trying out a lettuce variety called 'Nevada' in their garden this summer that's supposed to do well in warm weather. "They say it's bolt-resistant," he says. This season, the harvest includes a special Roma tomato called 'San Marzano Redorta' and Italian barlotti beans.
