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.

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

This a  live view of the energy system we are using at the Ecolodge. You can follow our electricity production, our real time consumption and the state of charge of our batteries. The little colorfull lines at the bottom of the boxes shows the data of the last two days. The blue moving lines indicate the direction of the electricity flow.

Short summery of the specification of our system:

It is an off-grid system and consists out of two PV – arrays with an 4,6 kWhp production capacity a battery storage capacity of 12,3 kWh and an inverter capacity of 9 kW.

Propagation Greenhouse

We had some old windows laying around….so one morning the idea popped into our head that we could build a small greenhouse. The purpose of the greenhouse is to propagate and raise seedlings. A bit before the growing season begins, while the weather conditions are still a bit to harsh for sowing outside this little protected space helps a lot to get started early.

With the three old windows we constructed the front, the top and the back. The front windows should be a bit smaller so you get an inclination on the roof. So the rain water can run of in order to protect the wood. We constructed the side panels out of some OSB scrap wood that where left over from another construction. We attached some pieces of wood to the side panels so that the Top can stay open while working in the green house.

Beginning of the construction

Here is a small step by step photo series that shows the construction of the Greenhouse

Happy gardening with home made plants……

Credits:

Text : Nicolas Bedau

Illustration : Nicolas Bedau

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

The Ecolodge has closed its first full season. We finally managed to gather and compose some data on the consumption of the Ecolodge. While designing our closed loop systems we had to make a lot of assumptions that where uncertain how they would play out.
They played out beautifully have a look for your self on the pictos below. I believe we can state that the Ecolodge has one of the lowest consumption of fresh water in the tourist industry of Greece. This is mainly achieved by the utilization of rainwater for the toilet flush and the reuse of the filtered water for irrigation.

The environmental benefit lays greatly in the reduced consumption of fresh water through out the year but especially in the summer period where the aquifers are under great stress. This often leads to sea water pressing into the fresh water bodies making the water brackish and reducing the quality to the point where it is not suitable for human consumption anymore. While we reduce our fresh water consumption, we still gain water for our ornamental plants. So we can support a quite dense plant cover which affects the micro climate positive. When we take a look at the average numbers that are given for the Greek Tourist Industry where daily fresh water consumption per person lays around 400L the Ecolodge managed to lower this by around a 4th to approximately 100-120L. These number is impressive because even compared to a highly developed country like Germany consumption lays at 200L.

The first Graph shows our total water consumption and the distribution between fresh water and rain water supplied by the cistern. The Graph shows clearly the increasing water demand towards August. This is explained by the full utilization of the client hosting capacity of the Ecolodge and the increase in irrigation demand caused by high temperature and increased wind. The next Graph shows the stress put on the cistern during this period. While the demand increases there is no inflow during the 4-5 summer months.

Electricity

All of our electricity needs are covered by the photovoltaic system successfully. The amount of electricity produced saved around 3 tons of CO2 (carbon dioxide) which equals out to the amount that 15 trees would accumulate over a life span of 45 years. In other words it equals to 3 round trips by airplane from Berlin to Athens to Berlin. Hmm that sounds like we still have a long way to go in order to make a substantial change for our planet. Thats true but we are becoming better….

Trees, Compost and Vegetables

Throughout the winter we planted around 17 new trees. That hopefully will support our efforts with nice local Lemons, Nectarines, Almonds, Mirabel, Apricots and Olives. We also planted around 70 ornamental plants and herbs like Lavender, Rosemary, Oregano, Sage, Caper and some climbers like Bougainvillea, Wine and Jasmine.  Most of these plants we support with Compost that is produced by our guests from kitchen waste and the Aquatron Unit that produces humanure.
The Vegetable garden is getting bigger and bigger from season to season and the output becomes more satisfying as we gain experience. The goal is to produce throughout the warm season more or less enough vegetables for our guests. These are 100% produced under organic ethics and are just delicious, while the need of imported vegetables is reduced.

Credits:

Text : Nicolas Bedau

Illustration : Nicolas Bedau

Resources:

the carbon dioxide was calculated with : http://www.carbonify.com/carbon-calculator.htm

the water consumption for tourist industry comes from:  C. Michael Hall, 2011, Tourism and Water Use: Supply, Demand, and SecurityAn International Review available here: Tourism and Water

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

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.

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