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Grow With Us
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
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- I foster, I nourish
- I raise (as a child, an animal, etc.)
- I feed, I maintain, I develop
From our visual diary...
Is it an alien?
Is it an alien?Nope. It's a armenia pugens, a native small bush, known as cravo das areias.It thrives on sandy patches by the coast and flowers in Spring. It reaches up to 50cm and it's a perennial.It is drought tolerant and a careful and exciting addition to our food...
Finally! Bio pears are so hard to find! Oh, and it’s Rocha, a tough but delicious variety cultivated in this region. But…what? It’s from Argentina. No pears for us, then. One day, we will eat them from our garden.
Finally! Bio pears are so hard to find! Oh, and it's Rocha, a tough but delicious variety cultivated in this region. But...what? It's from Argentina. No pears for us, then. One day, we will eat them from our garden.
Varnishing planks for the next bird house.
Varnishing planks for the next bird house.