ROBERTSDALE, Ala. — With workers carrying out flats of plants and assorted bushes and shrubs, a passerby might have been sure there was a nursery on Carolina Street in Robertsdale April 9-11.

Well, that passerby would be wrong. What was going on was the South Baldwin Center for Technology’s plant sale. The flats and shrubs are raised by students in the school’s Agriscience and Horticulture programs, with some specialty plants coming from local growers. The programs are designed to prepare students for a variety of careers, or to better appreciate their own gardens.

The school holds a sale to clear room in the garden area and to make money twice a year.

The school plant sale is a boon to area gardeners. The plants are chosen to suit this area’s climate, and because they are school projects, the students lavish attention on them.

According to the school’s Web site, flats of annuals (that’s 36 plants) sold for $9, flats of 18 premium annuals were $12, six-inch pots sold for $3, and gallon containers of perennials were $6. The next sale will be in October. If you want to be informed of the next sale, keep checking the school’s Web site, www.sbctschool.com, or e-mail Kelley at jkelley@bcbe.org

“We have sold more vegetables this year,” said Jeff Kelley, the school’s Agriscience teacher. “The tomatoes and other vegetables were the first to go.”

Kelley added that by Friday afternoon, the pepper plants were also gone as well. He estimates the students had raised around 12,000 tomato plants to sell.

“The students started a lot of this from seed,” said Kelley. “They learned how to grow the plants and now they are learning nursery and sales work.”

Exactly what will be available in the fall hasn’t been decided yet. While the school has a greenhouse, the program focuses on plants that don’t need that sort of protection.

“We will have a different selection of plants in the fall,” explained Kelley. “The students have to learn to grow for the seasons.

That learning was not lost on sophomore Ashlee Byrd, a first-year horticulture student.

“This has been interesting. I like plants,” said Byrd, who is also taking the “fish and wildlife” class at the school. She says she has a garden and will use what she has learned with that, but she isn’t certain what she wants to do yet. She said she eventually hopes to go to Faulkner State Community College.

“I like to see flowers and stuff bloom,” said Byrd. But, like any teen, she finds “soil under my nails” to be the worst part of gardening.

“This Italian parsley smells wonderful,” said Chuck Kendrick of Fairhope, as his wife asked several students about the plants she was putting onto her cart.

“Looks like I am going to be busy planting,” he said.