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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
-
- I foster, I nourish
- I raise (as a child, an animal, etc.)
- I feed, I maintain, I develop
From our visual diary...
The strawberries are popping up everywhere.
The strawberries are popping up everywhere.So tasty!
That’s okay. We all have hair days like this.
That's okay. We all have hair days like this.Every day, they grow their feathers a little more and look different from the day before.
The debate about using only native plants in our gardens might be strong but both the local sage leaf rock rose (estevinha) and the cabbage flowers are being visited by bees and butterflies.
The debate about using only native plants in our gardens might be strong but both the local sage leaf rock rose (estevinha) and the cabbage flowers are being visited by bees and butterflies.