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Alo Land Strategy Summary
Alo Land is a regenerative initiative by us – Petru and Inês. We are former tech professionals who moved to Portugal with our two children. We currently manage a 1-hectare plot with a food forest and own an additional 2.5-hectare undeveloped plot nearby.
Vision and Goals
- Land restoration using regenerative practices
- Supporting holistic well-being (physical, emotional, spiritual)
- Cultivating eight forms of capital (financial, material, living, social, intellectual, experiential, spiritual, cultural)
- Building community resilience
Current Challenges
- Overwhelming workload maintaining the food forest
- Potential for more social connections, particularly for the adults
- Gaps in food production despite potential
- Restrictions on travel due to land care responsibilities
Strategic Approach
The family has shifted to an incremental growth strategy that focuses on:
- Leveraging existing resources and activities
- Attracting people to the land (as participants or volunteers)
- Creating a volunteer pipeline
- Thoughtful development of their 2.5-hectare plot
What's with the name?
From Wiktionary: alō (present infinitive alere, perfect active aluī, supine altum or alitum); third conjugation
-
- I foster, I nourish
- I raise (as a child, an animal, etc.)
- I feed, I maintain, I develop
From our visual diary...
It was time to prune the lavenders
It was time to prune the lavenders
Spreading compost on his veggie garden bed.
Spreading compost on his veggie garden bed.Meanwhile we weeded and fertilized the one next to it, preparing it to transplant seedlings.
Making a patch of tree cabbage (couve galega) for future use as food for the ducks and geese.
Making a patch of tree cabbage (couve galega) for future use as food for the ducks and geese.The comfrey patch is also for this, but comfrey dies back in the winter. This cabbage should still be around, at least for part of the cold season.The patch was set up with...