Peter and Claire Monea
Claire and Pete Monea moved to the Dalesford area to live at the midpoint between their two workplaces in Ballarat and Castlemaine. They fell in love with the area and settled there permanently after purchasing a 10-hectare former pine tree plantation.
With 10 hectares of land, and wonderful childhood memories of visiting u-pick berry farms, Claire had the bright idea to plant a grove of blueberries and open the property to u-pick tours. While they were at it, they planted five varieties of cane berries, including blackberries and raspberries, as well as a field of strawberries.
To the couple's disappointment, the blueberries didn't grow or fruit successfully at all, but the cane berries and strawberries grew and fruited prolifically. So they planted more cane berries and strawberries, and Morningswood Farm was born.
Claire and Pete manage their farm with primarily organic growing practices. They don't spray herbicides, fungicides or pesticides and use organic certified fertilisers such as worm tea, and fish and seaweed emulsions.
With berry farming being one of the most intensive agricultural sectors for single-use plastics, Claire and Pete are also particularly passionate about lowering their waste. They use reusable weed matting and have developed an ingenious alternative to single-use plastic punnets. Their punnet alternative is made from woven wood veneer redirected from landfill. They started a side business named Box Brothers, which manufactures and sells all sizes of these veneer boxes and supplies the reusable, biodegradable punnets to Morningswood.
