About BaleGrow | Straw Bale Gardening Education Programs

About Our Company

Why choose BaleGrow’s Sustainability Program?

BaleGrow™ is dedicated to producing programs that are fast-moving, fun, educational and most importantly can fit into the framework requirements and quality areas for all centres. Our BaleGrow programs can meet many intended outcomes for educators.

When creating our programs, we considered all the opportunities we can provide the children with, that are stimulating, creative and also easy for staff and educators to maintain.

Our BaleGrow Program topics provide educational experiences that cover:

Alternative gardening methods
Introduction to straw bale gardening
Healthy eating
Learning opportunities about recycling
A real connection with food production
Environmental awareness
Mindfulness
Wellbeing
Worm farming
Composting
Exploring bugs in our world
Water awareness

Sustainability Programs

It's affordable and sustainable

Adding a straw bale garden to your kindergarten or child care centre is a wonderful alternative to conventional gardening. Unlike constructing raised veggie beds that are costly and difficult to maintain, straw bale gardening is raised off the ground, need very little upkeep and FULLY SUSTAINABLE. The bale will eventually break down into compost, teaching children the value of en-riching the earth and giving back to the environment.

There's no weeding

The idea of enhancing the learning opportunities for children, but not adding to the already full work load of educators was extremely important to me in the design of this program. With the garden established, no ongoing weeding required and resources provided, the running of this program is easy in regard to time and cost.

It looks great

Straw bale gardens are flexible in their placement and best of all look amazing. With a minimum of 3 bales per facility (program 2) Straw bale gardens are lush and vibrant and are a beautiful addition to any learning space.

Anyone can do it

The BaleGrow™ Program is suitable for all educational settings and service providers. It’s a great place to start for educators that wants to introduce the centre to food production and sustainable methods of growing. Straw bale gardens can be placed on any surface area within your center with a minimum 5 – 6 hours of sun exposure. It’s also a NEW and easy way to add alternative growing methods to your centres learning program. This program can work along side your already established growing areas. A new straw bale garden is a great addition to any learning space.

Meet Our Team

Tracey Sidwell

Founder / Owner

Creator of this sustainability program. A dedicated mother of 4, that has a passion for straw bale gardening and food education. Teaching children about healthy eating and the joy that can come from growing your own food has been instrumental in my journey creating this program. One word to describe Tracey: Fun

info@balegrow.com.au

Michelle Tolhurst

Marketing and Tech Expert

Michelle has been supporting Bale Grow behind the scenes as a valued client for several years. Her role involves maintaining the website, design work and email campaign support. She runs her own business Creative Desk, helping small businesses with their marketing.

creativedesk.net.au

Rita Bentos

Social Media Manager

Rita is the social media manager for Bale Grow. She creates all of our imagery and captions for Facebook, showcasing our brand to the world. Also part of the Creative Desk team, providing social media support to small businesses.