EDIBLE ECOSYSTEMS GARDEN COURSE
A 6-month hands-on training in St. Pete, FL to reconnect to Nature & grow real food
“Zeff absolutely changed our family’s life through his nature courses for adults & children.”
“I didn’t think it was possible but Zeff helped me grow a green thumb! Now I have so much food in my garden, it’s too much for me to eat!”
“If there’s anyone who can remind you of your place in nature, it’s Zeff.”
— former Permaculture Course participants
What is it?
Every virgin forest on the planet grew without a single shovel or bag of fertilizer. Nobody tilled the land, no holes were dug, no irrigation systems were set up. Instead, the cooperative collective we call Nature joined together to create a self-sustaining living system.
GROW WILD is not your average garden course. This is a hands-on experiential training in growing edible garden ecosystems—thriving, dynamic, living gardens that are rooted in true ecological systems design.
How does Nature do it? How can we replicate that on a home garden scale with plants that nourish us? How can we create abundance without depending entirely on stores? How can we do this practically and sustainably?
Re-Wild Yourself
Learn hands-on how to design, create, plant and grow a garden with direct guidance and education. Connect with the land and learn from native ecological systems.
Learn the Principles
Enrich yourself with a deep understanding of how natural systems function and how to grow food Nature’s way, supporting Earth’s well-being and our own.
Inner Gardening
When we tend the garden, we tend the inner garden, too. Experience how the garden helps us become more resourced and connected people, inside and out.
This course utilizes perspectives from Permaculture food forests, Syntropic Agroforestry, indigenous growing practices from around the world, sub-tropical ecological research, Florida native flora & fauna, traditional herbal medicine practices, and—perhaps most importantly—direct, lived experience.
By the end of this course, you will have a deeper awareness of and connection with the living world of Nature around you—and within you. You will have the basic skills and experiential know-how to begin a garden system for your home or for our community, with guidance along the way. You’ll have a network of wonderful people interested in sustainability and growing a healthier way of life. You might even have a little more of yourself, and a greater capacity to contribute something remarkably essential, valuable, and meaningful to our world.
Course Layout
Months 1 & 2
ROOTS
The essential building blocks of preparing a successful wild garden.
Months 3 & 4
SHOOTS
The strategies and systems to grow a wild garden successfully.
Months 5 & 6
FRUITS
Maintaining, expanding and harvesting from a dynamic ecosystem
Modular Class Schedule
Whether we like it or not, gardens rarely adhere to fixed plans.
So, we keep it natural.
Our modular schedule is based around lunar plant cycles (new moon / full moon) and garden readiness. Nature cannot be forced. That’s how humans got into the modern-day mess!
We meet as a group once a week, alternating between in-person garden tending and online learning sessions. Sessions will typically be on weekday evenings, or weekend mornings. Course materials will be provided for you to explore and learn at your own pace.
If you can’t make it to a session, there will be more. Online sessions are recorded. If you want to dive deeper or you miss a group class, there will be many more opportunities to “shadow” on garden projects and learn 1:1.
To complete the course, all participants must meet or exceed the core requirements for garden experience hours and number of sessions for each course stage. These are modular, meaning some of the classes don’t need to be taken in a specific, chronological order.
It’s flexible, like the branches of a tree.
Support the Creation of Unity Gardens
Our program’s hands-on garden hours directly benefit the creation of residential edible ecosystems & Unity gardens here in our St. Pete community. Particularly in Healthy Food Priority zones.
All of our gardens are designed to meet or exceed the requirements for:
2026 Cohort is open as of June 1!
Spots will fill quickly
Exchange: $500
(payments possible)
Weekly & bi-weekly sessions
Flexible schedule
To sign up, please email, text or call Zeff:
mtzeff@gmail.com
808-785-3786
Zeff
Permaculture Garden Designer
Since 2012, Zeff has lived and studied with the best of the best, from expert permaculturists, to pioneering organic farmers, to—most significantly—dozens of indigenous communities around the world. He is dedicated to the re-wilding of humanity through connection to Self, Nature, Presence, and Community.