The Seoul Metropolitan Government and a French state school of landscape architecture have signed a memorandum of understanding  to set aside space for Korean vegetables in a French royal kitchen garden, officials here said Thursday.

The move is part of bilateral efforts to bolster environmentally friendly agricultural cooperation on the occasion of the 130th anniversary this year of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Korea and France, the officials said.

Under the MOU, the Seoul municipal government and the Versailles National School of Landscape Architecture will create a 60-square-meter garden, called "Seoul Kitchen Garden," inside the King's Kitchen Garden near the Palace of Versailles.

The envisioned garden will be managed for five years until 2020, the officials said.

To celebrate the International Year of Pulses this year, the Seoul municipality plans to grow Korea's popular green kernel black beans and white corvania in the garden.

Korean lettuce, crown daisy, young radish, buckwheat and other vegetables will also be cultivated there, officials said.

The royal kitchen garden in Versailles, which covers 25 acres, or nine hectares, was created some 330 years ago when Louis XIV was in power. At the garden, now open to the public, some 400 kinds of fruit trees and many varieties of vegetables are grown. (Yonhap)