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Grow With Us

Where Regeneration Meets Community: Experience sustainable living in a family-led food forest on Portugal’s Silver Coast, where your participation directly contributes to building a resilient multi-generational ecosystem.

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:

  1. Leveraging existing resources and activities
  2. Attracting people to the land (as participants or volunteers)
  3. Creating a volunteer pipeline 
  4. Thoughtful development of their 2.5-hectare plot

What's with the name?

From Wiktionary: alō (present infinitive alereperfect active aluīsupine 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...

The ducks after entering the new coop by themselves for the first time.

The ducks after entering the new coop by themselves for the first time.

The ducks after entering the new coop by themselves for the first time.Like the previous two evenings, we had to herd them out of their pond. This time we were very gentle once they stopped a couple meters in front of the door. We gave them time to look and assess the...

Scenes from the 54mm of rainfall we got today.

Scenes from the 54mm of rainfall we got today.

Scenes from the 54mm of rainfall we got today.The west swale and its spill basin overflowed, but water keeps pooling and slowly moving down the landscape. There's definitely room for improvement, but the overall water catchment plan seems to be working well so far.The...

The new duck coop is ready for business.

The new duck coop is ready for business.

The new duck coop is ready for business.The ducks were very reluctant to enter. It took a lot of herding and prodding, and they kept flying away. We had to catch a couple of them and put them in by hand. The very last one ended up entering the old coop after she...

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