Markos Papageorgiou

Hi guys!

I live on a beautiful island called Aegina, about an hour from Athens in the Saronic gulf.
Aegina suffers from a terrible water issue - apart from some families living on the mountain slopes, all the others are pretty much dependant on water from the mainland, as most wells have been dried long ago.
The water that we get in summer is full of invasive seawater - ultra salinated. whoever tries to water his plants with these waters - , combined with 45 degrees C heat, kills his whole garden within weeks. everyone relies here on tons of bottled water coming from north Greece and Crete every day (ridiculous!)
Several attempts have been made with installing expensive filters on the taps - most of them break down within months.

I wonder if there is any decent way of desalinifying and cleaning the water for garden use, without selling a kidney or make the whole farm a one big rain water collection basin to last the whole summer.

Hello everyone! Me and my partner are starting to build our first compost toilets, and we have a few questions that have arisen. I wonder if you guys might have some insights based on your experience.

we have 90 Ltr plastic bins (surdy, yet not drums or barrels that could be easilly rolled), and we intend to innoculate all carbon material (mostly woodchips) with home made Lactobacilicum (AKA EM-1) to aid composting in any anaerobic pockets and odour elimination. temperatures on the island we live in (Aegina, Greece) vary from 3-4 degrees C lowest in winter to 45 degrees C in summer.
Based on a calculation found in 'goodbye to the flush toilet' booklet I read, each bin should last for about 4 - 6 weeks between 2 people.

in the coming weeks we are going to have Volunteers coming in helping us around the farm, and in summer possible workshop projects - means between 6 people around in winter / spring up to 15 in summer.
If I understood correct, poo should be left to mature for at least 2 years to become humus, or decomposed in the centre of a large normal aerobic compost after 6 months of aging.

1, can a bin be filled almost to the brim? 2/3 of it? 3/4 of it before sealing to mature?

2. is there a decent way of using soley compost toilet without eventually having to rotate between a large ammount of bins all over the plot?

3. if bins are not the answer, is there another safe way to store poo without letting any possible pahogens leaching into the soil and the roots of the pistachio trees all over the plot?

4. what is the best way of aerating composting poo?

5. once the bin is full, should I just let it be, closed in the corner and let it do its own thing with no intervention for a while or must it be rotated regulary?

Thank you all!