Practical urban permaculture, cold-climate closed-loop resilience, and accredited 72-hour Permaculture Design Certification with veteran designer Matthew Stephens.
Real-world ecological systems engineered to operate passively by gravity, biological cycles, and zero-waste design.
Convert urban food scraps, carbon yard trimmings, and brewery spent grain into nutrient-dense biological fertility through thermal composting, vermiculture, and microbial inoculants.
Harvest up to 24,000 gallons of unchlorinated roof runoff annually. Design gravity-fed storage, stone infiltration swales, and rain gardens that eliminate municipal water reliance.
Stack multi-tier edible ecosystems—from deep dynamic accumulators and nitrogen fixers to high-yielding berry bushes and cold-hardy fruit canopies—even on compact city parcels.
A printable step-by-step diagnostic worksheet to map your site assets, calculate exact rainfall harvest potential, diagnose soil compaction, and locate your highest-leverage first intervention.
Trained directly under permaculture co-originator Bill Mollison (Melbourne, Australia, 2009), Matthew Stephens is one of Mollison’s last direct students. Over three decades, he has adapted core ecological principles to cold-climate urban landscapes, Midwest homesteads, and resilient community food systems.
Founder of Sacred Ecology Design and builder of Chicago’s first public food forest (2014), Matthew has taught over 15 accredited PDCs across 4 continents—from Chicago to India, Thailand, and Canada.
From foundational urban growing to professional Permaculture Design Certification.
Open access community for urban growers and homesteaders.
Advanced monthly mentorship and design teardown vault.
The official 72-hour Permaculture Design Certificate.