This paper examines the Yucatec Maya home as an architectural form and concept that participates within two ecological registers. One is linked to the agroecological systems of the milpa—the successional corn fields of Mesoamerica—and home garden that have sustained Maya and other Mesoamerican lifeways, while the other is an ecology of meaning that is deeply imbricated in the biological ecology. It is the oscillating synergy between these ecological registers that shapes the milpa system and Maya material culture. The emic significance of Maya vernacular architecture lends this meaning to the plants grown in the field and home garden used in its construction that extends beyond simply their utilitarian use. Accordingly, the formal requirements of the Maya home and the practices that unfold within it compel particular kinds of engagement with the surrounding landscape that have formed a sustainable system for millennia. This paper examines this system to propose interdisciplinary methods of accessing Indigenous ecological knowledge and of better understanding the role of cultural elements within ecological systems.