permaculture – Tinos Eco Lodge

Certified PDC 2026

Tinos Eco Lodge — Tue, 18 Feb 2025 12:30:29 +0000

23 May– 6 June

Led by Peter Cow

We are excited to announce the Spring PDC 2026 that will be hosted in Tinos Eco-lodge welcoming again Peter Cow from England and assistant teachers Elena Symeonidou and Nicolas Bedau from Greece. Peter, Elena and Nico will combine their skills from both Northern and Southern ecosystems and climatic conditions and will put emphasis on Social permaculture as well as Regenerative agriculture, with lots of hands on and practicals during the course. (read course outline here)

This PDC is fully certified by the Permaculture Association (Britain). The course will be taught in English.

The Permaculture Design Certificate

The Permaculture Design Certificate is an 80 hour theoretical course based on Bill Mollison’s Designers Manual, and the 35 years of creativity, research and development in the worldwide Permaculture movement since. It explores how we can use today’s tools and technology to create a more sustainable world. Permaculture is not only about growing vegetables and animals, it is a whole sustainable lifestyle such as creating community, developing efficient and beautiful homes and growing healthy, happy people. Permaculture ethics are Earth Care, People Care and Return of Surplus and this is taught by showing students to focus on local resources and their local community, and to have well thought out design practices to create abundance sustainably.

Our Course

In this course we added 2 extra days to have more time for practicals and hands on experience. Peter, Elena, and Nikos will share their wide knowledge and experience as well as their creative teaching techniques to guide us through the principles of permaculture, gaining a thorough understanding of how we can use our natural resources for our own sustenance while restoring and taking care of the earth. Theory, group exercises and hands on projects are well combined through this 14 days course. In the end personal projects of the participants or of the site are put into the final designs and are worked out thoroughly by the groups formed.

Nikos from Tinos Ecolodge will share his hands-on experience of building the ecolodge and designing the energy, water and waste treatment systems as well as market garden design. We will have the rare opportunity to discuss and elaborate on Nikos’ and Marilia’s choices on different aspects of their project, reflect on the challenges, opportunities and limitations.

A well run PDC can be a life changing experience. For many people it can be the most intense learning experience of their lives, and great fun to boot. Surrounded by like-minded people, you will learn the framework to thrive in a rapidly changing world. You will also develop the skills to heal damaged landscapes while providing for your own needs. There is no need of previous knowledge of the subject.

Be prepared to have a full day course, starting at 9am and finishing at 7pm with lunch break and coffee breaks and with some presentations and films in the evenings as well. Arrival day is 23 of May. Plan to arrive to the Ecolodge by 5pm on the arrival day, for the getting to know us session and dinner together, no course on that day, also last day the 6th June is departure day. For detail information about the daily schedule please read Participants Spring 2026 Tinos PDC timetable

PDC Teachers

Peter Cow Dip. Perm. Des.

Peter took his PDC in 1998, and gained his Permaculture Diploma in 2007, apprenticing with the wonderful Aranya Gardens and started running his own PDCs in 2012. He has led Permaculture courses in Greece, Sweden, UK, Portugal, Jamaica, Cyprus, Finland and Denmark. Alongside land based design, he has been very involved with People Permaculture: exploring ways to expand the use of Permaculture, using its principles and design to support our relationships, groups, families, organisations and personal growth. He has worked with Looby MacNamara, author of ‘People and Permaculture’ since 2013, leading Facilitator Trainings and Design courses. He co-creates immersive and empowering learning experiences that connect people more deeply to nature, themselves and their community. Peter also works with Jon Young and the ‘8 Shields’ movement internationally, running events and supporting organisations to share nature connection and cultural healing practices and principles to enrich our lives and communities.

Back in 2000, Peter co-founded Steward Community Woodland, a sustainable woodland community in Dartmoor, UK. He lived, designed, learned and played there in deep collaboration with the land and people for 7 years. Peter now lives on another farm in Dartmoor, where he enjoys wild running, working with trees and chainsaws, group singing, gardening and deepening connections. For more information visit his website livingincircles.com

Elena Symeonidou

Elena comes from a multidisciplinary background that combines engineering, ecology, and hands-on land-based practice. She studied Electrical and Computer Engineering at the National Technical University of Athens, a training that shaped the way she thinks in terms of systems, problem-solving, and design. Her professional path initially took her into film and science communication, including several years at CERN in Geneva, where she worked on making complex scientific ideas accessible to the public.
Her relationship with ecology developed through permaculture. Since 2009, she has trained extensively in permaculture design with teachers such as Bill Mollison, Geoff Lawton, Darren Doherty, and Rod Everett, while also engaging deeply with agroecology, regenerative agriculture, soil biology, holistic management, water systems, and natural building. This learning has always been closely tied to practice, through work on farms, ecovillages, and agritourism projects in Australia, Asia, and across Europe.
For fifteen years, she has been designing, managing, and consulting on projects ranging from private gardens to full agricultural systems, as well as teaching permaculture to diverse audiences. In recent years, she completed an MSc at the University of the Aegean, focusing on biodiversity conservation, Natura 2000 protected areas, and climate change mitigation—bringing together practice, systems thinking, and environmental science. Check also her website http://permaculture-greece.org/

Dipl. Ing. Nicolas Bedau

Nico, half Greek half German, has combined his background on Landscape architecture with Ecology in designing and building the Ecolodge. Together with Marilia, they have applied a lot of the permaculture principles and sustainable building techniques that will be showcased during the course. He has been sharing his experience here since 2016 that we run PDCs and is also a design consultant in off grid systems for homes or small communities, as well as water management and waste water treatment systems in other projects around Greece. He has made Tinos Ecolodge part of the HORIZON 2020 project Hydrousa and is also participating in other European research projects that focus on water management and circular economy. His interest in sustainable agriculture and market gardening has led together with Marilia to organise and run a veggie box scheme for residents in Tinos that is expanding also to restaurants during the summer season. All these different aspects of sustainable living will be discussed and analysed during the PDC.

The Location

Tinos Ecolodge was designed from the beginning based on the sustainable use of resources which are permaculture principles as well. At Tinos Ecolodge you will have the opportunity to see stone built houses with local materials, an off-grid system for energy production for the whole lodge which is powered by solar panels, a collection of rain water system, a reedbed filtration sewage system, indoor compost toilets with the Aquatron separation system, outdoor compost toilets, outdoor kitchen and shower filtration systems, an organic vegetable market garden, a 60m2 Greenhouse, an extended herb plantation, a vineyard for homemade raki and wine production, hugelculture beds, compost and vermicompost production, chicken coop for egg production and compost, and a lot more to be built and learned during the seminar. Location info

Accommodation and food

Tinos Ecolodge is situated in a beautiful island setting with great sea views and sunrise from the sea, traditional terraced landscape, with a nearby fresh water stream and lots of old oak trees to camp under. There is also limited space in the 3 lodges which can host up to 12 people, sharing the houses. There are outdoor showers and compost toilets for those who camp. There will be a communal outdoor kitchen where we will eat all together 3 meals per day, prepared by our local cook an expert on delicious Greek vegetarian recipes. Max number of participants is 20 people.

Booking info

Cost: early bird prices 770 euro/tents and 1070 euro/houses if booked until the 30 of January 2026, after that 870 euro/tents and 1170 euro/houses. There are also sponsored places for people with economic difficulties (especially Greeks) at 500 euro/tent, please contact us to apply for one of these places!
These sponsored places are enabled by people on higher incomes choosing to pay 1270 euro/house or more – this is voluntary so please let us know if you are willing to sponsor a place and help someone on a low income attend the PDC.

The price includes

14 days course
Certified Permaculture Design Certificate from the UK Association
Accommodation
3 Vegetarian meals per day by our local cook from Tinos
Herbal teas, coffee & Fruits
A day long field trip including 3 site visits, beach and ending up to a Greek taverna (meal cost is extra)

Please note that the price is kept intentionally low to make it affordable for all.

For booking a place a deposit of €300 must be paid on application, full balance to be paid upon arrival. Please note that in case of needing to cancel the deposit is not refundable because of very low cost seminar and limited places. Please download the application form below, bank details are included and send it to Marilia or email her if you need any further information and details about the course.

Download the application-form-pdc-2026-May

Contact details Marilia Kalouli, info@tinosecolodge.gr

Tel.0030 6974467611

Impressions of previous years courses:

If you want to learn some more about our previous PDCs read the following articles:

http://www.tinosecolodge.gr/news/pdc-2019-by-michelle/

http://www.tinosecolodge.gr/news/permaculture-design-course-what-an-amazing-experience/

http://www.tinosecolodge.gr/news/pdc-experience-2017/

Why do I like teaching permaculture in Tinos Ecolodge since 2019

Why do I like teaching permaculture in Tinos Ecolodge since 2019

Tinos Eco Lodge — Mon, 03 Feb 2025 08:05:25 +0000

I’ve taught Permaculture in many places – on a Jamaican sugar cane plantation, in the docks in Sweden, the moors of England, and many venues around Southern Europe.

The Tinos Ecolodge is one of my favourite venues, its such a great place to explore regenerative living. The project itself is a super inspiring well designed eco centre, and the wildness of the land around it brings an expansiveness to the course, and a great balance to the intense weeks.

Every year I go back the Ecolodge has been improved in some way, as Marilia and Nico’s vision develops and new ideas come to them – another reservoir, new plantings, the chicken house moves, a bigger kitchen seating area is built…

It’s such a great example of permaculture in practice. Some of the most powerful sessions on the course are Nico and Marilia sharing about their designs and what they learnt whilst carrying them out. I love seeing the photos of the Ecolodge construction as they tell the story of how they have regenerated the place – from the soil to the wildlife to the water table. As ever the construction earthworks were quite shocking, but the investment in landforms and buildings will be paying off in biodiversity and human joy for decades – as the land dries and dies off around them, the site is increasingly noticeable for its trees, wildlife and green growth even in the summer.

One of my favourite parts of the course is the buildings tour, where we get to learn about how the beautiful ecohouses were designed and built, using computer modelling, scale models, and finally local stonemasons and large digging machines.

During the tour everyone who has been staying in one of the ecohouses gets to see and learn so much more about the space they have been living in, and what happens when they flush the toilet, or use a compost loo… (hint – it all gets recycled back onto the land : ) I love how permaculture helps us see, and understand so much more about the system we use and rely on.

I love the long, wide view down to the coast from the Ecolodge, and how dark the wild valley gets at night, before the sun rises over the sea, briefly outlining the island of Ikaria. I enjoy walking or running up to Potania and enjoying its springs and hidden pathways, and when I’m feeling fit, a run down to the beach, a swim and a slow jog back up helps me feel very alive. I usually leave the island fitter than when I arrive!

There are also lots of tracks on the land around the Ecolodge – some officially waymarked with signs, others just the tracks that the wild goats use, or old human paths mostly abandoned now. The landscape is one big agricultural sculpture really – trackways made out of the flat stones snaking in between terraces made of the flat stone, and occasionally earth roofed stables/huts made out of the same flat stones. I can easily imagine people working in this valley, walking up the tracks to the villages with their harvests, or spending a night in a stable/hut before continuing work the next day. They used to grow cereals all over this island, and you can still see wild oats growing, but most of the terraces look unused now, though a few are still used for keeping animals or olive trees woven with irrigation pipes.

The land outside the lodge, mostly brittle and dry, growing only goat-proof spiky small bushes, is such a contrast to the growing lushness of the land inside the Ecolodge fences, where the water, soil, plants and animals are regenerated and renewed.

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Volunteer places 2026

Tinos Eco Lodge — Thu, 14 Nov 2024 10:27:57 +0000

Collecting herbs
Planting herbs
Harvesting Greenhouse
Compost project PDC
PDC cook helper
Greenhouse in summer
Greenhouse in summer
s ecolodge winter garden
Veggie boxes delivery
Baby asian mustard leaves
Summer Tomatoes
Herb garden in front
Building herb drier
Planting herbs PDC
Chicken care
Volunteers house
Lavenders
Stone wall construction

Volunteer work at Tinos Ecolodge (from May until end September, 1 month min stay)

Become a volunteer at Tinos Ecolodge and gain a life learning experience on agrotourism and permaculture. Volunteers from all over the world have joined us since 2015 and helped create a sustainable, ethical and caring space for guests, hosts, teachers, students and locals. The daily tasks mainly concern work in the vegetable gardens and greenhouse, other plantations (grapevine, fruit trees, herbs), chicken care, maintenance works on infrastructure and house cleaning during the tourist season. There is also a special place of Kitchen assistant during a PDC (look for PDC dates 2026). In general the volunteer works 25hrs weekly, this is shared between weekdays and weekends, except during a PDC*. The daily schedule usually is 8am to 1pm in Spring or Autumn and a morning shift and evening shift in the summer.

More specific Garden jobs include:

Irrigation: All gardens, plantations, nursery, Greenhouse, pots
Weeding: All gardens, plantations, Greenhouse
Pruning: Tomatoes, Cucumbers
Harvesting: All gardens for Friday veggie boxes and restaurants, herbs and fruits when ready
Planting: when seedlings are ready according to crop plan
Pest control: checking and removing bags, spraying when necessary with organic materials
Fertigation: Prepare beds for planting
Compost: collect cuttings, shredder, move compost hips
Chicken care: clean coop, feed and collect eggs

Other jobs:

Cleaning houses when needed during touristic season
Maintenance work: painting, oiling, fixing etc
Preparing for events: May PDC, September PDC, other events
During PDC: Help the cook in preparing meals. This year’s PDC is 24 May – 7 June and 27 September – 11 October.
General keep clean common areas, showers and compost toilets, and Utility area.

What we offer

Accommodation and food. Accommodation can be either in the small stone hut, which can sleep one person or a couple, or 2 friends, as it is a single room with a double bed and a sofa. Or it can be in tent during hot months (June to September). Showers and toilets are outside, as well as common kitchen area.

Food, is vegetarian based, shopping is done together but up to a certain budget, meals are cooked by the volunteers. Veggies from the garden are always available to the volunteers.

Life learning experience. Tinos Ecolodge has been practicing permaculture and has design the whole ecolodge implementing all the alternative technologies in water collection, waste water management, and energy efficiency since 2014. Living at the Ecolodge is a great learning experience in all aspects of living off the grid and producing food within a market garden approach. The Ecolodge one can say is a fully self sufficient and sustainable business. Also following the permacutlure principles on Earth care, People care and fair trade it has built an ethic working environment that is based on mutual respect and responsibility.

What we expect. A person wanting to learn, physically and mentally fit, responsible on the tasks that are assigned, punctual, able both to take initiative and follow instructions, respectful, self dependent, basic knowledge on gardening, being able to cook for themself, clean and organised. It will be greatly appreciated if there is a permaculture background. We ask for at least 1 month stay.

*PDCs. During the 2 week PDC we need a kitchen assistant to the vegan chef. The job is focused solely on the meal preparations, lunch and dinner, which are prepared daily the whole 2 weeks, 13 days. Ideal for someone that wants to improve their knowledge on Greek vegetarian-vegan cooking and socialize with like minded people from all over the world.

Please send us a motivation letter at info@tinosecolodge.gr

Permaculture Design Course May 2025

Tinos Eco Lodge — Mon, 23 Sep 2024 05:16:27 +0000

24 May– 7 June

Led by Peter Cow

We are excited to announce the tenth extended PERMACULTURE DESIGN COURSE (PDC) that will be hosted in Tinos Eco-lodge welcoming for the seventh time Peter Cow from England and assistant teachers Nicolas Bedau from Greece, and Elena Symeonidou from Greece. Peter, Elena and Nico will combine their skills from both Northern and Southern ecosystems and climatic conditions and will put emphasis on Social permaculture as well as Regenerative agriculture, with lots of hands on and practicals during the course. (read course outline here)

This PDC is fully certified by the Permaculture Association (Britain). The course will be taught in English.

The Permaculture Design Certificate

Our Course

Be prepared to have a full day course, starting at 9am and finishing at 7pm with lunch break and coffee breaks and with some presentations and films in the evenings as well. Arrival day is 24 of May. Plan to arrive to the Ecolodge by 5pm on the arrival day, for the getting to know us session and dinner together, no course on that day, also last day the 7th June is departure day. For detail information about the daily schedule please read: May_June 25 Tinos PDC timetable

For those who want to stay longer there is an extended practical possibility until the end of June. During this period you will be able to put into practice the everyday market garden work, planting, harvesting and selling to the local restaurants, irrigation systems and water storage and supply, as well as other operational tasks on an agrotourism off grid farm. Please let us know if you are interested for the longer practical stay.

PDC Teachers

Peter Cow Dip. Perm. Des.

Elena Symeonidou

With a background of computing engineering and cinematography, Elena got in touch with Permaculture in Bali, Indonesia, in 2008 and has not looked back since. For 15 years she has been broadening and deepening her knowledge in sustainability and regenerative agriculture both in theory and in practice in three continents. She has been certified by the Permaculture Research Institute of Australia taken PDC courses with the one and only Bill Mollison, Geoff Laughton, Rod Everett and Mill Millington, and last but not least Darren Doherty, whom she considers her mentor and whose courses in Greece she facilitated. She had practical experience in Australia, Asia and Europe in private and community projects. She is currently running a small farm on Paros an island not far from Tinos and is the curator of an urban permaculture project in Eleusis, Cultural Capital of Europe 2021. She has been training and consulting people in regenerative practices with an emphasis in the Mediterranean climate. Check also her website http://permaculture-greece.org/

Dipl. Ing. Nicolas Bedau

The Location

Accommodation and food

Booking info

Cost: early bird prices 770 euro/tents and 950 euro/houses if booked until the 31 of January 2025, after that 870 euro/tents and 1070 euro/houses. There are also sponsored places for people with economic difficulties (especially Greeks) at 450 euro/tent, please contact us to apply for one of these places!
These sponsored places are enabled by people on higher incomes choosing to pay 1250 euro/house – this is voluntary so please let us know if you are willing to sponsor a place and help someone on a low income attend the PDC.

The price includes

14 days course
Certified Permaculture Design Certificate from the UK Association
Accommodation
3 Vegetarian meals per day by our local cook from Tinos
Herbal teas, coffee & Fruits
A day long field trip including 3 site visits, beach and ending up to a Greek taverna (meal cost is extra)

Please note that the price is kept intentionally low to make it affordable for all.

For booking a place a deposit of €200 must be paid on application, full balance to be paid upon arrival. Please note that in case of needing to cancel the deposit is not refundable because of very low cost seminar and limited places. Please download the application form below, bank details are included and send it to Marilia or email her if you need any further information and details about the course.

Download the application-form-pdc-2025-May

Contact details Marilia Kalouli, info@tinosecolodge.gr

Tel.0030 6974467611

Impressions of previous years courses:

If you want to learn some more about our previous PDCs read the following articles:

http://www.tinosecolodge.gr/news/pdc-2019-by-michelle/

http://www.tinosecolodge.gr/news/permaculture-design-course-what-an-amazing-experience/

and http://www.tinosecolodge.gr/news/pdc-experience-2017/

Permaculture Design Course September 2023

Tinos Eco Lodge — Fri, 05 Mar 2021 10:58:00 +0000

23 September – 7 October (14 days certificate)

Led by Peter Cow

We are excited to announce the ninth extended PERMACULTURE DESIGN COURSE (PDC) that will be hosted in Tinos Eco-lodge welcoming for the fourth time Peter Cow from England and assistant teachers Nicolas Bedau from Greece, Bram van Overbeeke from Holand. Peter, Bram and Nico will combine their skills from both Northern and Southern ecosystems and climatic conditions and will put emphasis on Social permaculture as well as Regenerative agriculture, with lots of hands on and practicals during the course. (read course outline here)

This PDC is fully certified by the Permaculture Association (Britain). The course will be taught in English.

The Permaculture Design Certificate

In this course we added 2 extra days to have more time for practicals and hands on experience. Peter, Bram, and Nikos will share their wide knowledge and experience as well as their creative teaching techniques to guide us through the principles of permaculture, gaining a thorough understanding of how we can use our natural resources for our own sustenance while restoring and taking care of the earth. Theory, group exercises and hands on projects are well combined through this 14 days course. In the end personal projects of the participants or of the site are put into the final designs and are worked out thoroughly by the groups formed.

Be prepared to have a full day course, starting at 9am and finishing at 7pm with lunch break and coffee breaks and with some presentations and films in the evenings as well. There is no need of previous knowledge of the subject. For detail information about the course and what will be covered please go to the following link: Read more about the COURSE OUTLINE

PDC Teachers

Peter Cow Dip. Perm. Des.

Bram van Overbeeke

Bram is a Permaculture designer and started out on his teaching journey in 2019 with Peter. He has been involved in environmental activism and permaculture for over ten years and is a life-long student of his biggest teacher, nature. He did his PDC in 2011 and since then has been involved in designing and implementing a variety of projects; ranging from garden designs to water filtration systems, building a strawbale tiny home to off-grid energy systems. Having gained his experience in the field, he now puts his actions into words and aims to teach what he has learned. In the past year he has become involved in the Nature Awareness movement and has studied Eco-psychology, working to translate his experience into a compassionate, culture building story for the future.

Dipl. Ing. Nicolas Bedau

The Location

Accommodation and food

Booking info

Cost: early bird prices 700 euro/tents and 900 euro/houses if booked until the 29 of Αugust, after that 800 euro/tents and 1000 euro/houses.

The price includes

14 days course
Certified Permaculture Design Certificate from the UK Association
Accommodation
3 Vegetarian meals per day by our local cook from Tinos
Herbal teas, coffee & Fruits
A day long field trip including 3 site visits, beach and ending up to a Greek taverna (cost is extra)

Please note that the price is kept intentionally low to make it affordable for all.

For booking a place a deposit of €200 must be paid on application, full balance to be paid upon arrival. Please note that in case of cancellation the deposit is not refundable because of very low cost seminar and limited places. Please download the application form below and send it to Marilia or email her if you need any further information and details about the course.

Download the application-form-pdc-2023-Sept

Contact details Marilia Kalouli, info@tinosecolodge.gr

Tel.0030 6974467611

Impressions of previous years courses:

If you want to learn some more about our previous PDCs read the following articles:

http://www.tinosecolodge.gr/news/pdc-2019-by-michelle/

http://www.tinosecolodge.gr/news/permaculture-design-course-what-an-amazing-experience/

and http://www.tinosecolodge.gr/news/pdc-experience-2017/

Permaculture Design Course, Autumn 2018

Tinos Eco Lodge — Wed, 10 Jan 2018 09:11:46 +0000

22 September – 4 October (12 days, 80 hours certificate)

Led by Dr. Rod Everett and Mill Millichap

We are excited to announce the third FULL PERMACULTURE DESIGN COURSE (PDC) that will be hosted in Tinos Eco-lodge welcoming back two knowledgeable teachers from England, Rod Everett and Mill Millichap, who are teaching permaculture since 1990 in various parts of the world and are coming to Greece and spreading the permaculture philosophy and way of life for the last 6 years.

This PDC is fully certified by the Permaculture Association (Britain).

The Permaculture Design Certificate

The Permaculture Design Certificate is an 80 hour theoretical course based on Bill Mollison’s Designers Manual, teaching how we can use today’s tools and technology to create a more sustainable world. Permaculture is not only about growing vegetables and animals, it is a whole sustainable lifestyle. Permaculture ethics are Earth Care, People Care and Return of Surplus and this is taught by showing students to focus on local resources and their local community, and to have well thought out design practices to create abundance sustainably.

Rod and Mill in Tinos 2016 PDC

Rod and Mill have been coming to Greece and teaching permaculture since 2011. Their wide knowledge and experience as well as their creative teaching techniques are guiding us through the principles of permaculture gaining a thorough understanding of how we can use our natural resources for our own sustenance while restoring and taking care of the earth. Theory, group exercises and hands on projects are well combined through this 12 days course. In the end personal projects of the participants are put into the final designs and are worked out thoroughly by the groups formed.

Nikos from Tinos Ecolodge will share his hands-on experience of building the ecolodge and designing the energy, water, plant and waste systems. We will have the rare opportunity to discuss and elaborate on Nikos’ and Marilia’s choices on different aspects of their project, reflect on the challenges, opportunities and limitations.

Be prepared to have a full day course, starting at 8am and finishing at 7pm with lunch break and coffee breaks. There is no need of previous knowledge of the subject. For detail information about the course and which chapters of Permaculture will be covered please go to the following link: Read more about the COURSE OUTLINE

PDC Teachers

Rod has gained his teaching certificate in 1990 with Lea Harrison who ran a teacher training course and advanced design course in his farm in 1990. This started most of the UK permaculture teaching. Later he participated in a creative teaching course with Skye. This really inspired him and has been the stimulant for his teaching technique. “Whole body learning enables the permaculture principles to become an integral part of your life”. He lives and runs Backsbottom Farm in Lancaster UK, a huge area of woodland and pasture fields, where he raises animals, has a forest garden and orchards, organises educational visits and runs different permaculture courses. For more info visit his website www.rodspermaculture.co.uk
His great friend and co teacher Mill brings his knowledge and skill of growing food for many years and living a thoughtful and simpler life. Although from the UK he is more Mediterranean, he lives and runs a farm in Extremadura, Spain and has currently bought a property in Greece, Seliana, together with ecocultural community Re-green, so he spends his time in both countries. He always adds his wealth of knowledge and enthusiasm for life to their joint courses.

The Location

Tinos Ecolodge was designed from the start based on sustainable use of resources which are also permaculture principles as well. At the Tinos Ecolodge you will have the opportunity to see stone built houses with local materials, an off-grid system for energy production for the whole lodge which is powered by solar panels, a collection of rain water system, a reedbed filtration sewage system, indoor compost toilets with the Aquatron separation system, outdoor compost toilets, outdoor kitchen and shower filtration systems, an organic vegetable garden, hugelculture beds and a lot more to be built and learned during the seminar. Location info

Accommodation and food

Tinos Ecolodge is situated in a beautiful island setting with great sea views and sunrise from the sea, traditional terraced landscape, with a nearby stream and lots of old oak trees to camp under. There is also limited space in the 2 lodges which can host up to 8 people. There are outdoor showers and compost toilets for those who camp. There will be a communal outdoor kitchen were we will eat all together 3 meals per day, prepared by our local cook an expert on delicious Greek vegetarian recipes. Max number of participants is 20 people.

Booking info

Cost: early bird prices 450euro/tents and 550euro/houses if booked until the 30th of June, after that 550euro/tents and 650euro/houses.

There will be also a special price for Greek participants which are suffering from the economic crisis at 380euro early bird – 480euro after 30 of June, only for camping.

The price includes 3 meals, breakfast, lunch and dinner, 2 field trips, plus the PDC certificate.

For booking a place a deposit of €100 must be paid on application, full balance to be paid upon arrival. Please note that in case of cancellation the deposit is not refundable because of very low cost seminar and limited places, only if the place cancelled is replaced by someone else it can be refunded. Please download the application form below and send it to Marilia or mail her if you need any further information and details about the course.

Download the application-form-pdc-2018.doc

Contact details

Marilia Kalouli, info@tinosecolodge.gr

Tel.0030 6974467611

Impressions of previous years courses:

If you want to learn some more about our previous PDCs read the following articles:

http://www.tinosecolodge.gr/news/permaculture-design-course-what-an-amazing-experience/

and http://www.tinosecolodge.gr/news/pdc-experience-2017/

Solar Herb Dryer (Dehydrator) DIY

Tinos Eco Lodge — Fri, 15 Dec 2017 10:58:38 +0000

As the garden and the different herbs we planted are becoming bigger we felt the need of having a solar dryer to dehydrate and preserve more and more food. Here on Tinos island we have a lot of sun radiation and a generally warm climate which should give us optimal conditions for working with the solar dryer. The passive design fits nicely into our sustainability approach and goes hand in hand with permaculture practice.

The design of the dehydrator is greatly inspired by the work of Dennis Scanlin from the Appalachian State University. While I was looking at the design it came to my mind that it would be great to use an old Solar heater panel as a heat trap. We discovered that it is fairly easy to find panels from old solar water heaters at recycling places or at you’re local plumper. They have everything you need inside: good insulation at the back, very good solar glass for optimal absorption of radiation and a really good copper heat absorber. So we changed the design a bit in order to fit everything to our panel. We increased the actual drying box a bit and switched to side opening doors. The benefit in this design lays in the recycling aspect and the lower amount of building effort.

The initial design was made in order to build it at one of our permaculture seminars but we didn’t have the time this year. So we decided to build it now.

The over all Dimensions

In our case the dimensions are bond to the heater panel we found. The panel is fairly big with 110 x 198 cm, which gives us a 2,2 sqm heat absorber surface. The actual drying box has a volume of 0,65 cubic meters. The angel at which the Panel stands is around 40 degree. Of course that can be changed if you change the Height of the Box. If you want to operate it mainly in summer, then choose a lower angel, if you want to optimise it for spring and autumn, choose a higher angel.

Basic Materials and Tools

The Timber we used is standard rough construction softwood in order to get the price as low as possible. We sanded them down on site in order to give them a smooth touch and make the paint job easier. The beams are 2,5×4,5 and 4×6 which are standard sizes here in Greece. We used one sheet of outdoor plywood with 12mm thickness. The material for the frame can be any kind of mesh from plastic or metal like mosquito net, chicken wire. The important part is that the mesh is big enough in order for the warm air to circulate properly but small enough to hold the material you want to dry. If you want to take it to the next level get some material that has a food grade certificate just to make sure you dont and up contaminating your food with anything nasty leaking out of the material. You should have some basic wood working tools like sketched out below.

Explosion Drawing

The explosion drawing gives you an basic overview of the pieces that are needed and the place where they will be placed. Also you see how they interact with each other. In the next picture where we show the parts with the dimensions and the amount you can read out where they are used.

Assembly

In first cut all the wooden pieces that are described and sand them down. Then start with disassembling the solar panel. I think every panel will be a little bit different from the inside. Ours was actually consisting out of three parts, the metal sheet back plate, the insulation at the back, the heat absorber, the solar glass and the aluminum frame holding everything together. So we got rid of the insulation in order to free space in side the frame so that the warm air has room to flow upwards. Then we took out the absorber and cleaned it. Afterwards we cut the openings in the upper and lower part of the frame for the air inlet and outlet. Then we cut an extra piece of plywood in order to replace the old metal back plate. This is important to improve the overall insulation of the heater. The old metal back plate was then screwed to the new plywood back from the inside and on top we placed the copper heat absorber. Then we fitted everything back into the aluminum frame.

Then start with the assembly of the wooden box that sits on top of the heater panel. Screw the beams to the plywood I like to add some wood glue to the connection in order to have a good long term adhesion between the parts. Connect the 2 side parts with the front panel and put in the floor plate. At this stage we changed the design adhoc. We realized the we actually don’t need the legs under the box which make the whole construction fairly big and bulky. We came up with the idea to place the panel on a piece of sloped land and the box on top on the ground. You will see what I mean on the next pictures. So we cut the legs off. Then we started the frame construction that is quite a hassle because you have to do the same steps over and over again. In order to simplify this process we made a place holder construction so that it is easy to align the pieces in a 90 degree angel.

After the frames are ready we oiled them in order to proof them against humidity. Then we cut the wire mesh and the textile mesh and stapled the material on the down side of every frame. We used the different meshes in order to dry different things. The fine mesh is nice for leafed material and the wire mesh for juicy things like tomatoes. Then we placed the tiny latches on both side walls of the box in order to transform the frames into drawers. Afterwards there came the doors and the roof.

Lets start drying

We had some first experiments with the dryer. We tried out basel, nettle and wild mint…..while we have still fairly high temperatures for December (around 15 C) it is some how winter but beside that the temperature are rising to 40 C for at least some ours of the day inside the Box. The nettle leafs took about three days to completely dry out. I believe that is also due to very high humidity levels at this time of the year. We will make some long term temperature measurement with an Arduino datalogger and 4 Temperature Sensors inside the box upper and lower part, in the heater panel and the ambient temperature. So we will make an update to the article in the next weeks……

Improvements

From the initial design to the final build we made some changes that came to us while building(described further down). Also I came across a nice study from Dennis Scanlin that was published in 1999 while writing this article (Study). While reading it I saw that the design described here could surely be improved further. One thing would be to place the copper heat absorber in a diagonal way instead of flat us we did. Also a way to control the size of the air inlet and outlet seams to be a must have. This will help to fine-tune temperature and airflow in order to achieve maximum drying. The other important part is, by closing the air vents, to avoid a reverse thermosiphoning in night time that will suck cold air through the unit resulting in rehydration of the material.

Download for Printing ( PDF)

Herb dryer for PDC_technical_small 3

Credits:

Text : Marilia Kalouli and Nicolas Bedau

Illustration : Nicolas Bedau

Resources:

a lot of inspiration for our system came from:

http://www.news.appstate.edu/2009/07/09/solar-food-dryers-designed-at-appalachian-preserve-food-worldwide/

https://www.motherearthnews.com/diy/tools/solar-food-dehydrator-plans-zm0z14jjzmar

for further reading take a look at the study that has very detailed information on the thermal design:

http://www.rivendellvillage.org/Solar_Food_Dryer.pdf

If you have any suggestions, questions or improvements just post a comment below

Autumn 2017 Permaculture Design Course

Tinos Eco Lodge — Mon, 15 May 2017 10:55:15 +0000

23 September – 5 October (12 days, 80 hours certificate)

Led by Andrew Jordan and Elena Symeonidou

We are excited to announce the second FULL PERMACULTURE DESIGN COURSE (PDC) that will be hosted in Tinos Eco-lodge with two knowledgeable teachers Andrew Jordan from Ireland and Elena Symeonidou from Greece.

The Permaculture Design Certificate

Andrew and Elena aim at inspiring students with their own very real examples of transforming their lives with permaculture in a contemporary context. Having worked in a broad spectrum of climate and social conditions, they will share with their students the thrills but also the challenges they faced. Oftentimes permaculture is being presented as a panacea for world problems and the road to resilience and abundance is depicted as straightforward and easy. Andrew and Elena will challenge this notion and try to prepare their students in a realistic manner for their own fascinating journey towards change.

Nikos will share his hands-on experience of building the ecolodge and designing the energy, water, plant and waste systems. We will have the rare opportunity to discuss and elaborate on Nikos’ and Marilia’s choices on different aspects of their project, reflect on the challenges, opportunities and limitations.

Anyone who wants to bring a big change in his life and gain a thorough understanding of how we can use our natural environment sustainably is welcome to participate. There is no need of previous knowledge of the subject.

The Location

At the Tinos Ecolodge you will have the opportunity to see stone built houses with local materials, an off-grid system for energy production for the whole lodge which is powered by solar panels, a collection of rain water system, a reedbed filtration sewage system, indoor compost toilets with the Aquatron separation system, outdoor compost toilets, outdoor kitchen and shower filtration systems and a lot more to be built and learned during the seminar. Location info

PDC Teachers

Elena Symeonidou: With a background of computing engineering and cinematography, Elena got in touch with Permaculture in Bali, Indonesia, in 2008 and has not looked back since. For 10 years she has been broadening and deepening her knowledge in sustainability and regenerative agriculture both in theory and in practice in three continents. She has been certified by the Permaculture Research Institute of Australia taken PDC courses with the one and only Bill Mollison, Geoff Laughton, Rod Everett and Mill Millington, and last but not least Darren Doherty, whom she considers her mentor and whose courses in Greece she facilitated. She had practical experience in Australia, Asia and Europe in private and community projects. She is currently running a small farm on Paros an island not far from Tinos and is the curator of an urban permaculture project in Eleusis, Cultural Capital of Europe 2021. She has been training and consulting people in regenerative practices with an emphasis in the Mediterranean climate. Check also her website http://permaculture-greece.org/

Andrew Jordan: Andrew was first introduced to permaculture while volunteering on a farm in Australia. Bitten by the bug, he proceeded to track down as many permaculture people and projects as possible, learning the principles and practice through direct experience. His work led him to realise a particular passion for agroforestry, natural building, and botanical medicine. In pursuit of working models and mentors, Andrew spent almost ten years working on permaculture farms and communities around the planet, developing new skills and knowledge, centred around; food production, land management, shelter building, energy systems and the design process. Recently returning to his homeland of Ireland, Andrew has focused on small scale bio-intensive food production, following biodynamic principles. He currently manages the gardens at Sonairte, Ireland’s National Ecology Centre, where he and his team produce a wide range of fruits, vegetables and animal products for the local community. He also gives courses on growing, permaculture and natural building.

Accommodation and food

Tinos Ecolodge is situated in a beautiful island setting with great sea views and sunrise from the sea, traditional terraced landscape, with a nearby stream and lots of old oak trees to camp under. There is also limited space in the 2 lodges which can host up to 8 people. There will be a communal outdoor kitchen were we will eat all together 3 meals per day, and outdoor showers and compost toilets for those who camp. Max number of participants is 20 people.

Booking info

Cost: early bird prices 450euro/tents and 550euro/houses if booked until the 10^th of July, after that 550euro/tents and 650euro/houses.

There will be also a special price for Greek participants which are suffering from the economic crisis at 380euro early bird – 480euro only for tents.

The price includes 3 meals, breakfast, lunch and dinner, 2 field trips, plus the PDC certificate.

For booking a place a deposit of €100 must be paid on application, full balance to be paid upon arrival. Please download the application form below and send it to Marilia or mail her if you need any further information and details about the course.

Download the application-form-pdc-2017

Contact details

Marilia Kalouli, info@tinosecolodge.gr

Tel.0030 6974467611

Outdoor kitchen and showers

Tinos Eco Lodge — Mon, 13 Jun 2016 13:24:46 +0000

This spring we put all our effort in preparing outdoor infrastructure for hosting seminars and camping in our land. We decided to make a communal space at the back by the vegetable garden for cooking and sitting, showers, sink and compost toilets. The designs were made by Nico and the construction by all of us in parts.

There were several issues that had to be dealt with. First we had to bring the water, drinking and rain water. There is no hot water yet in the showers, we will see how necessary it will be, but in the kitchen we put a 40m spiral tube laying on the pergola which warms up with the sun.

The kitchen area was tested in Easter, when we did our traditional lamp and kokoretsi and had 25 visitors! The showers now that is hot are used everyday and the compost toilets and sink are under construction.

The second important issue is the sewage, we decided that showers and kitchen will have independent small sewage systems, kitchen will have a grease trap and showers will have also a small sediment tank before disperse in a ditch nearby. This remains to be done.

Micro sewage solutions

Tinos Eco Lodge — Wed, 04 May 2016 20:44:35 +0000

While planning our outdoor kitchen, shower and toilets we had to figure out a solution for the waste water. Because the planned area was about 200m away from our reed-bed system, that was installed last year, i researched about some smaller decentralized solutions. Which could be built up easy, cost extensive while still delivering a proper treated waste water.

I came across one of the best resources on the web that is covering like every aspect of sanitation there is:

http://www.susana.org/en/

under this link you can find a lot of studies, ideas and examples what is possible today in terms of alternative sewage solutions:

http://www.susana.org/en/resources/akvo-sanitation-portal#akvopedia:Sanitation%20Portal

Kitchen Grey Water Solution

Greywater: is a wastewater fraction which is not heavily polluted. It includes wastewater from hand wash basins, showers, kitchen sinks and household appliances like washing machines or dishwashers and excludes toilet wastewater. The major pollutants are thus derived from soaps, shampoos, detergents, sweat, dead skin, hairs, oil and grease. The contamination by pathogens in grey-water is considered to be very low due to the absence of toilet wastewater.

So fore our own purposes i came up with an under sink solution for the grey water that is produced by the kitchen sink. This grey water has one big problem which is the high amount of grease and fat that is produced while cooking. As a hot substance grease is fairly fluid and runs free with but water and oil do not mix. As the grease cools it clogs due to the fact it is not soluble in water. This fats will lead to clogging in the tubes and will create problems in the sand filter.

So i came across professional grease traps that are used in the food industry. They function basically with a chamber system which allows the oils to raise to the surface while the sludge sinks to the ground.

As shown in the picture above the water enters at the first chamber on the left side and runs passively through the next chambers in to the last one on the right side. Because the particles we want to separate will float to the surface our connections between the chambers have to be at the bottom. The first chamber has a slightly risen connection because there will still be some slurry, like small pieces of food, that need sink down (sedimentation). In order to reduce the particles i have seen some nice ideas that make use of a bucket filled with straw that sits over the first chamber. The straw acts as a filter mesh for bigger parts and can be, when filled, easily emptied on a normal compost heap.

While taking care of the grease we and up with normal grey water that is depending on the soap used no big deal for a well designed and maintained sand filter. The Sand Filter can be easily connected with an over flow pipe after the Grey water chamber. In the sand bed a drainage pipe distributes the overflow evenly with in the vertical filter bed.

The Filtered Water tank can be used to keep fish. You can use them as bio indicator to check on the filtration quality of the System (if bad, fish goes dead). How ever keep in mind that in most European states it is not allowed to use processed grey water for irrigation on edible plants. The picture beneath shows the over all setup of the system.

Sizing of the Sand Filter

As general rule, the required area is 1.25 m² of filter surface per 100 L of grey-water a day. To ensure proper functioning of the filter the surface should be at least 1 m² and should have a minimum depth of 70 cm for horizontal flow and 100cm for vertical flow systems. The sand filter can be planted to avoid clogging. The main treatment process encompasses the retention of particles by the filter material and cleaning processes due to biological activity in the biofilm on the sand. So the plants are good but not needed for the processing of the water.

Specific water consumption by different household appliances, per person (Friedler 2004).
Hand wash basin 15 L / person / day
Bathtub 20 L / person / day
Shower 20 L / person / day
Kitchen sink 25 L / person / day
Dishwasher 5 L / person / day
Washing machine 20 L / person / day

Design alteration

The same system could be build with a variety of materials and ready available containers or scrub material like old bathtubs. A widely available cheap container is the blue plastic barrel so here is the system again in blue:

Resources used:

GREYWATER TREATMENT IN SAND AND GRAVEL FILTERS
Low Tech Solution for Sustainable Wastewater Management
Manual for Design, Construction, Operation and Maintenance
Author: Lukas Huhn, June 2015

Technology review of constructed wetlands
Subsurface flow constructed wetlands for greywater and
domestic wastewater treatment
Authors: Dr. Heike Hoffmann, Dr.-Ing. Christoph Platzer,
Dr.-Ing. Martina Winker, Dr. Elisabeth von Muench, Eschborn, February 2011

permaculture – Tinos Eco Lodge

Certified PDC 2026

23 May– 6 June

Led by Peter Cow

The Permaculture Design Certificate

Our Course

PDC Teachers

Peter Cow Dip. Perm. Des.

Elena Symeonidou

Dipl. Ing. Nicolas Bedau

The Location

Impressions of previous years courses:

Why do I like teaching permaculture in Tinos Ecolodge since 2019

Volunteer places 2026

Permaculture Design Course May 2025

24 May– 7 June

Led by Peter Cow

The Permaculture Design Certificate

Our Course

PDC Teachers

Peter Cow Dip. Perm. Des.

Elena Symeonidou

Dipl. Ing. Nicolas Bedau

The Location

Impressions of previous years courses:

Permaculture Design Course September 2023

23 September – 7 October (14 days certificate)

Led by Peter Cow

The Permaculture Design Certificate

PDC Teachers

Peter Cow Dip. Perm. Des.

Bram van Overbeeke

Dipl. Ing. Nicolas Bedau

The Location

Impressions of previous years courses:

Permaculture Design Course, Autumn 2018

22 September – 4 October (12 days, 80 hours certificate)

The Permaculture Design Certificate

PDC Teachers

The Location

Impressions of previous years courses:

Solar Herb Dryer (Dehydrator) DIY

The over all Dimensions

Basic Materials and Tools

Explosion Drawing

Assembly

Lets start drying

Improvements

Download for Printing ( PDF)

Credits:

Autumn 2017 Permaculture Design Course

23 September – 5 October (12 days, 80 hours certificate)

The Permaculture Design Certificate

The Location

PDC Teachers

Read more about the COURSE OUTLINE

Impressions of last years course:

Outdoor kitchen and showers

Micro sewage solutions

Kitchen Grey Water Solution

Sizing of the Sand Filter

Design alteration

Resources used: