The High Garden: a 50-year demonstration of land and water recovery in the Rio Grande watershed
A veteran-led working farm in Rio Arriba County, built as the first node in a long-arc network of recovery farms rooted in acequia and water repair.
Why this watershed, now
The High Garden sits in the Rio Grande watershed of northern New Mexico, in Rio Arriba County. This is a place where snowpack is less reliable, growing seasons are shifting, and long dry spells strain both fields and communities.
Many acequias are aging. Some ditches run only part of the year. Others are losing stewards as older parciantes pass on and younger families move away. When acequias weaken, so do the soils, the springs, and the local food base.
At the same time, more land is sitting idle or being sold off in small pieces. Fields that once held staple crops now grow weeds or nothing at all. Springs that once fed acequias and wetlands are drying or buried.
The High Garden exists to show, in one visible place, how acequia governance, soil repair, and water-table recovery can be rebuilt together — and how that work can also hold people who are rebuilding their own lives.
The restoration work: keeping water in the land
The core work of The High Garden is water — keeping it in the land and in the commons.
We start with **arroyo restoration**: low-tech, process-based work in the Zeedyk tradition. Small, hand-built rock structures slow storm flow, heal incised channels and headcuts, and let water soak back into the ground instead of cutting deeper.
Alongside this, we focus on **ojo restoration** — recovering springs and raising the water table through groundcover, deep-rooted perennials, and careful water management.
This is held within **acequia governance**: active participation in the traditional gravity-fed irrigation commons, cleaning, repairing, and stewarding the ditch as shared infrastructure.
Over time, these water practices support **syntropic agroforestry** — layered, self-fertilizing food forests that build soil, hold water, and produce food, fodder, and fiber.
The Bathhouse Commons
The Bathhouse Commons is an acequia-led civic bathhouse: public commons infrastructure fed by the ditch, where a fixed share of every visit returns to the acequia that stewards the water.
The ethic is simple: the water itself is never sold. The community pays to steward it, and its abundance is shared, not enclosed.
Each bathhouse is rooted in its own acequia and locally governed. This is a network, not a chain — a replicable model, not a franchise.
The Bathhouse Commons is designed as the self-sustaining engine of The High Garden vision: the piece that can fund stewardship beyond grants and make the water’s return visible to the whole valley.
The 50-year arc and why the model works
The High Garden is a deliberate 50-year arc:
1. **Working farm** – establish production, soil-building systems, and acequia participation.
2. **Retreat** – host small groups for rest, learning, and hands-on work.
3. **Mental-health facility** – formalize care for people in recovery, rooted in daily land work.
4. **Watershed stewardship through political action and diplomacy** – use lived results to inform policy, funding, and cross-acequia collaboration across the Rio Grande watershed.
Ecclesia-Terra LLC is the first demonstration node of this vision. The aim is not a one-off project, but a pattern that can be repeated on other parcels in the Rio Grande watershed and beyond.
Here, land repair and human recovery are treated as one act. The same tasks that rebuild soil, shade, and water — planting, pruning, cleaning acequias, tending springs — also give structure, meaning, and peer support to people rebuilding their lives.
The project is veteran-led and draws on recovery-fellowship networks as the seed of a decentralized web of recovery farms. That lived experience brings practical discipline, peer accountability, and credibility with both participants and partners.
Where we are now
The High Garden is already in motion as a working farm and demonstration site in Rio Arriba County.
- Land base: [insert acres, tenure/ownership details]
- Water: [insert acequia name(s), water rights details, current flow/usage notes]
- Restoration sites: [insert arroyo and ojo restoration sites, structures, and current condition]
- Production: [insert current crops, tree plantings, or livestock details]
- Infrastructure: [insert key built elements: fencing, irrigation upgrades, nursery, etc.]
- Partners and advisors: [insert current partners, agencies, or mentors]
- Funding to date: [insert grants, loans, or private support]
- Next 12–24 months: [insert concrete next steps and build-out milestones]
This section should stay current as we add plantings, restore springs, and formalize the retreat and mental-health phases.
How to partner
To make The High Garden fully visible and replicable, we are seeking:
- **Funding partners** – multi-year support for land work, infrastructure, and program build-out.
- **Land partners** – aligned landowners interested in hosting future High Garden nodes.
- **Program partners** – veteran-service, mental-health, and recovery organizations ready to co-design on-the-land programs.
- **Technical expertise** – acequia engineering, syntropic agroforestry design, hydrology, and policy strategy.
If you see your mandate in this work — as a funder, landholder, practitioner, or neighbor in the Rio Grande watershed — we would welcome a direct conversation.