purplepear

About the People at Purple Pear Farm

Kate Beveridge and Mark Brown both have a passion for providing nutritious food, especially for children, for walking softly on the Earth and are happy to share with others what they have learned along the way.
Kate and Mark have have shared the work of running a community supported agriculture project at Fosterton, near Dungog and now at their own property at Anambah.

About Kate Beveridge
Kate grew up in Charlestown and moved to Darwin where she completed her teachers training – specialising in early childhood education. Kate has worked as director of the Bellbird preschool, for herbalist Bronwyn Shaunessy, for Organic Feast (the organic shop in East Maitland) and partime at Linuwel, the Steiner school at East Maitland where is was involved in educating children with a disability.
Kate's work is now full time at the farm, specialising in propagation. She is involved in the Hunter Valley groups of Permaculture, Organic Growers and Biodynamics. She did her PDC with Mark at the Dungog Community Gardens in 2004.

About Mark Brown
Mark Brown was born in central Queensland and was raised on a cattle and sheep station until going to school in Brisbane. In 1969 he did an electrical apprenticeship with the Australian Army and moved to Singleton where he eventually established a business doing electrical and auto electrical repairs. Mark then worked for the mining industry at Ravensworth (north of Singleton) before starting a business designing and constructing edible backyards.
Mark did his PDC with Bill Mollison in 1996 at Tylgum. He has been closely involved in establishing the Rutherford and Dungog community gardens. He has designed and constructed gardens in the Hunter Valley and ran an organic market garden at Fosterton (near Dungog) before establishing the bio dynamic mixed farm near Maitland in the Hunter Valley.