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Now enrolling — August 2026

ROOTED: A Six-Month Living Foods & Wellness Immersive


Three places remaining in the August 2026 cohort

There's a reason every culture on earth ferments.

Long before anyone understood the microbiome, people knew that fermented foods made them well. Stronger. More resilient. More themselves. The science is finally catching up to what tradition already knew and what it's telling us is extraordinary.

Your gut isn't just digesting food. It's in constant conversation with your immune system, your nervous system, your mood. The organisms in a well-made ferment are active participants in that conversation. And here's the part that moves me most, the health of your gut is connected to the health of the soil that grew your vegetables. The microbial communities in good earth and in a thriving human body are, in a real sense, related.

When you eat a jar of our kraut, you're not just feeding yourself. You're participating in an ecology.

We started The Cottage Collective because we wanted to bring people into that. Into the flavour, yes but also into the story. The land. The seasons. The small, beautiful, living things doing their work in the dark of a crock.

ROOTED is where we go all the way in.

THE PROGRAM

Six months. Small group. Real food, real plants, real country.

ROOTED is a six-month immersive program built around three seasonal modules of fermentation, herbalism, and permaculture all woven together with embodied wellbeing. One in-person cooking class each month at Pantry Vibes in Beaudesert. Two online meet-ups. A monthly post pack sent to your door. And the kind of community that builds when the same small group of people show up for something together, month after month, through the seasons.

Months 1 & 2 The Living Kitchen Foundation ferments of sauerkraut, kimchi, water kefir, kombucha. The gut microbiome. Macrobiotic principles. Setting up a home fermentary that actually works for your life.

Months 3 & 4 The Healing Garden Medicinal herbs: identification, preparation, seasonal formulations. Fermented herbal preparations.

Months 5 & 6 The Permaculture Kitchen Food systems thinking: growing, preserving, sharing. Zero-waste fermentation. Seasonal eating by design. A personal wellness plan to close the program.

WHAT YOU RECEIVE

  • Six in-person cooking classes every 3rd Saturday, 1pm–3pm at Pantry Vibes, Beaudesert

  • Twelve online group sessions 2nd and 4th Wednesday each month

  • Six monthly post packs, ferment starters, digestive tea blends, herb of the month, seasonal letter from Lizz

  • Six seasonal eBooks one per module, yours permanently

  • A copy of Stars Linger: A Practical Guide to Improved Health, Lizz's first book

  • A personal 1:1 wellbeing consult with Lizz ($210 value)

  • Private group community for questions, recipes, and peer support

WHO IS BEHIND THIS

Twenty years, one very long walk, and a strawbale kitchen in the Scenic Rim.

I'm Lizz Hills an international cooking teacher, health author, macrobiotic practitioner, and fermentation maker. I've been working with whole foods and living cultures for more than twenty years, my husband and I took on The Cottage Collective to bring that knowledge into people's kitchens in a form they could actually use.

In 2023 I walked 6,371 kilometres across Australia solo, 153 days, from the Scenic Rim to the Western Australian coast. That walk became the foundation of Trek2Reconnect, my nature-based wellbeing practice, and it sharpened everything I thought I knew about what the body needs to thrive. ROOTED came directly out of that experience.

I live off-grid in a strawbale home in Running Creek with my family and rescued wildlife. Everything I teach comes from a life actually lived this way not a philosophy I read about, but a practice I've built across the seasons, in this place, with these hands.

HOW WE WORK

Local  We source from Australia, Qld and the Scenic Rim, some of the most fertile volcanic soil in Australia. We know our growers.

Organic You can't make living food from vegetables treated with chemicals designed to kill living things. So we don't. Full stop.

Seasonal Our ferments move with the rhythm of what's abundant. Eating seasonally is one of the simplest ways to bring your body back into step with the world around it.

Always with heart Every jar that leaves our hands has been made by people who genuinely care about it. We think you can taste it.

INVESTMENT

$167 per month · or $897 upfront · concession places available, a Sliding scale from $110/month

Includes: six in-person Saturdays · twelve online sessions · six monthly post packs · six eBooks · Stars Linger · 1:1 wellbeing consult · private community

"Fermentation is one of the oldest acts of trust in human history. You put the ingredients together, you step back, and you trust the process. I think there's something in that for all of us."

Three places remaining. Enrolment closes 28 July.

Get in touch to secure your place or ask any questions — we'll respond personally within 24 hours.

 
 
 

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