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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...
Finished mulching the new berry patch.
Finished mulching the new berry patch.It's the thickest mulch we've done so far, let's see if it makes a difference.
Cutting down the remaining two plane trees (plátanos) 🥺
Cutting down the remaining two plane trees (plátanos) 🥺After the water pipe puncture the other week (the second one since we moved in), it was clear that they were in the wrong place.
Filling holes in the pasture strips.
Filling holes in the pasture strips.Used a half and half manure and coffee grounds mix again (with ryegrass seeds added). It seems to work slightly better than just pure coffee grounds.