Students at Kelly School traded pens and pencils for shovels and trowels as they broke ground on their first community vegetable community garden on campus today, Oct. 15.

The garden project will have a variety of vegetables, including beets, sugar peas, lettuce, cabbage, brussel sprouts radishes, kale and parsley.

With the help of plant doctor Rick Foell — who helps farmers and gardeners on the West Coast — students learned the basics of good gardening and resurrected a 3-foot-by-60-foot garden.

The garden has a layer of compost donated from Craig Dander. The seeds and seedlings were donated from M & M Landscaping while construction of the wooden frame around the garden came from the West High Space and Engineering Academy as part of their community project.

The school hopes to expand the garden project and have different classes at the school eventually take over planters around the campus for gardens. The work on the garden also ties into the classroom’s science and biology studies.

Food grown in the garden will be donated to local charities.