Throughout the French countryside, thrifty gardeners over the decades have designed and expanded the functional and beautiful "potager," or what we here in coastal Alabama would call a kitchen garden. Whether carefully designed or in the form of a loose planting in containers just outside the kitchen door, the potager combines the satisfaction of growing your own food with the pleasure of plucking what is needed just steps away from the kitchen. Most potagers include edible flowers (such as daffodils), herbs, fruits and vegetables.

The traditional potager is really a miniature version of bygone family farm plots. Today, the kitchen garden can serve as a central feature of the ornamental landscape or it may be little more than a humble vegetable plot. In England and France, potagers are carefully planned to be as attractive as they are practical. Potagers can feature patterned beds and archways where herbs, edible flowers, fruits and vegetables mingle into a celebration of color, flavor, fragrances and form.

Along with all of the rewards of growing a kitchen garden, it can be so interesting attending to the plants as they grow. Watching the edible plants as they emerge and develop in the garden becomes a real focal point where the family can learn about real food--how plants convert sunlight into good things to eat and about how much better home-grown produce is than packaged and processed foodstuffs crammed into grocery stores.

In the classic potager, edible flowers and herbs are planted with vegetables to enhance the garden's overall beauty. A well-designed potager provides food, as well as cut flowers and herbal seasonings for the home-all with little maintenance.

A vegetable garden or patch is included to provide vegetables for human consumption. Many families have learned to enjoy their kitchen gardens as a source of the freshest home grown produce that can be had. In World War II, many families grew victory gardens to provide for their produce needs in order to free resources for the efforts of war.

Whether you decide to design a simple kitchen garden or an elegant potager, here are a few basics to get you started.

Because space available just outside the kitchen door may be at a premium, reserve the space for delicate crops that will be picked a bit at the time, such as lettuces, scallions, radishes, peas and cherry tomatoes. Crops that are beautiful as well as edible, such as strawberries and ornamental peppers with their variegated foliage and multicolored fruits, are naturals in the kitchen garden.

Include some perennial crops in containers in your garden. Consider flanking the entrance to the kitchen garden with a pair of rugosa roses, with their edible rose hips, or blueberry shrubs, with their colorful, delicious berries. Matching large containers of figs or citrus plants could provide an inviting entrance to the garden.

Edible flowers are perfect companion plants in the kitchen garden, adding color and fragrance as well as a fragile taste for salads, cakes, cold soups and garnishes for the plate. Some choices for edible flowers might include bee balm, borage, daylilies, Johnny-jump-ups, lavender, marigolds, nasturtium, roses, scented geraniums and sweet peas.

Take a hint from the medieval farmers and gardeners of Europe and the American colonists. Begin with a simple kitchen garden or a more elegant potager today and start enjoying the freshest tastes, fragrances and beauty that will flourish in the sunshine right outside your kitchen door.