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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...
Walking around the garden and finding this colours is magic.
Walking around the garden and finding this colours is magic.Here is lavender and red clover. Such different plants, so beautifully growing together.
It is raining! 💦 “Abril, águas mil”
It is raining! 💦 "Abril, águas mil"But not on our goslings, it is still too soon. Brought them back to the coop, which is covered in ground cover they can eat. Life is good for these birds.
It was time to turn the compost pile again, also known as cardio workout of the day.
It was time to turn the compost pile again, also known as cardio workout of the day.While we have quite a variety of decomposers, it is very cool to finally see worms- and lots of them, thriving here.Hopefully, they'll spread out across the garden 🤞