That first garden supplied the produce, an olive grove produced olives, a grape arbor provided anti-oxidant rich grapes, and goats’ milk was transformed into fresh cheese and yogurt. (Today, there’s a creative, sophisticated, and worldly vegetarian menu augmented with the option to include wild salmon and Pacific fish.)

Since my first visit in 1990, my favorite place on the Ranch has been Las Estrellas, the organic farm reached on a two-mile morning hike that includes breakfast and the venue for cooking classes. (I discovered healthy spa cuisine while making a thin-crusted, lightly-cheesed Pizza Margherita in the original farm kitchen.)

Today, Las Estrallas is a six-acre showplace with 250 varieties of fruits, vegetables, and herbs and a soil-nourishing compost heap. The farm’s centerpiece is a stunning culinary center—La Cocina que Canta—where freshly picked ingredients are used for hands-on cooking classes (as well as for guest meals).

On a recent visit with my daughter, Sharon, she attended tennis clinics, I did Water Works; she practiced yoga when I danced Salsa. We each tried Inner Meditation but what we relished most, together, were the breakfast hike, the cooking class, and Debra Haffner’s Sex Education Course for Grown-Ups!!!

The Ranch’s commitment to the environment extends well beyond its organic farm to water conservation. While guests may notice that they are encouraged to use refillable water bottles, they usually don’t even notice the many other green elements.

Tecate—located an hour south of San Diego just three miles from the US border—receives about nine inches of annual rainfall, so water conservation is a priority.

The incredibly magnificent landscape uses mulch around native plants and waters using drip irrigation (a bio-marsh filters and processes grey water). Buildings, landscape walls, and pathways (made of paving stones set in sand) use cement bricks made of local clay that is red-fired in new and efficient kilns. (The Ranch’s non-profit foundation recently initiated a “clean kiln” program.) An on-site waste- treatment facility, water-filtering systems, water-efficient laundries, and pool oxygenating systems help. So do eco-friendly cleansers, chain down-spouts and French drains. Even the programming offers eco-education; one presenter, an organic farmer, explained how eating organic foods contributes to the farm workers’ health.

Family owned and operated Rancho La Puerta set the bar for green spas decades before the word green appeared in our lexicon. A wellness week there incorporates the beauty of place, the joy of camaraderie, the fun of fitness, the purity of organic vegetarian food, and a plethora of mind/body/spirit options (including an abundance of pleasure pampering services). I am among the many who always feels lucky—and at peace—there. www.rancholapuerta.com

The main house is a tri-level lodge-like structure with windows that face the swimming pond and organic flower and vegetable gardens. Its entry is on a slight slope and leads to the hotel’s reception desks, a gracious living room and meeting rooms. The window walled dining room fronts the pond and gardens. The spa facility—with its reception, boutique, medical offices, and 35 treatment rooms—is located on ground level from which there’s access to the sauna and indoor pool, as well as outside to the gardens, fitness pavilion, and cottage accommodations. High-efficiency thermal windows, low-flow toilets, faucets, and shower heads and energy efficient light bulbs are intrinsic to its green status.

Since the spa’s inception in 1977, Jocelyna Dubuc, president and general director, built gardens where organic produce—including fine herbs, edible flowers, sprouts, vegetables, and berries—provide gastronomic ingredients, enhance dinner plates, and decorate the landscape.

Guests find items grown on site on the buffet table and on the menu year round. These include blueberry preserves, eggplant spreads, and pureed carrot, leek, and other vegetable-based soups which are made in-house daily. Organic wines and what is not grown on site is sourced from local producers. According to Dubuc, “Spa Eastman has a rule of thumb to guide its actions called 3NJ (naked, near, natural, and just).” This means that purchasing focuses on items that use the least amount of packaging and processing possible, those that can be sourced locally, and those from businesses that respect their workers and the environment.

From the onset, there was a moral priority to avoid chemical fertilizers and pesticides on the property and to reuse, repair, recycle, or donate furniture and viable goods. In recent years, the spa has made efforts that go beyond using and sourcing organic products. These incorporate sustainable development programs and have been successful in reducing the destination spa’s ecological footprint. The implementation of the 3RV (reduction, reinvestment, recycling, and validation) is done systematically with impressive results. The spa recycles 81 percent of its waste products, uses EcoLogo cleaning products, saves thousands of kilowatts of electricity and tens of thousands of litres of water (the pools use naturally filtered salt water).

The spa’s contribution to the “development of sustainable health” was recognized for its environmental consciousness with Canada’s Phénix de l’environnement 2008 award in the Sustainable Development category. The spa also holds a Recyc-Québec’s “Ici on recycle!” certification. Spa Eastman is proud to be one of the first 10 hotels to get Réser-Vert Certification, a green certification. These Quebec hotels voluntarily try to achieve a balance in environmental, social, and economic issues based upon 140 specific actions in 10 sectors with 24 objectives all linked to sustainable development and include greenhouse gas reduction, reinvestment, community, ethics, and economic development.

In addition to raw food weeks, comprehensive wellness weeks, and a varied menu of spa treatments, the bilingual spa offers educational programs and advocates efforts that many guests can adopt at home. www.spa-eastman.com