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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...
Digging up sea buckthorn (espinheiro marítimo) shoots and planting them along the east fence.
Digging up sea buckthorn (espinheiro marítimo) shoots and planting them along the east fence.They are prolific spreaders and quite spiky, so they should make a good fence. They also fix nitrogen and (are supposed to eventually) produce very healthy berries.
The increased flow worked: duck pond almost empty, top pond overflowing into the south pond, which is also almost full.
The increased flow worked: duck pond almost empty, top pond overflowing into the south pond, which is also almost full.
Upgraded the pond pumping system to increase the flow out of the duck pond.
Upgraded the pond pumping system to increase the flow out of the duck pond.It used to have 25mm hose throughout, now it starts with 50mm (what the pump is designed for) and continues with 40mm (what we had lying around and could reuse).