Egg salad and fried egg sandwiches, brownies, several batches of chocolate chip cookies, and lots of pancakes: Since our chickens started laying on June 28, we have collected 37 eggs — and for the last 11 days straight we’ve gotten at least two each day.

It took a few weeks of fits and starts for the laying to become regular, and I don’t know when we might expect to start getting an egg a day from each of our four chickens (I think it took Bailey, our Rhode Island Red and first layer at least two weeks to become consistent). There was a stretch of five days in early July when our chickens laid no eggs that coincided with the first days of letting them range, so we kept them in the coop until we could determine that our pullets weren’t secreting eggs throughout the yard (They’ve only done this with one egg, left just outside the entrance to the coop).

But, despite not being up to full production, what we do get keeps us in eggs — excellent eggs.  What I initially took for tiny practice eggs turned out to be just eggs — our chickens lay in several sizes, from a tiny, just bigger than an olive variety, to the large eggs typical of a supermarket (though these arrive less often, and occasionally double yolked).  The eggs come in various shades of tan-brown.  Regardless of size, the quality is high, with firm, vibrant yellow-orange yolks so potent they color the pancakes we cook.  Definitely Grade AAA, a ranking that has little to do with size, though I always thought it did since at the market it seems to correspond with gargantuan eggs.

The biggest difference between our homegrown eggs and the store-bought kind is in shell strength: It takes a good, forceful smack to crack them enough to pry open.  This quality is essential since our birds continue to empty their nest boxes of all bedding so that they lay on bare wood.  The eggs end up dropping several inches and hit hard — but they all end up whole.  We’ve only lost one egg this past month, a large one I suspect Kate (the Dominique) of pecking open and eating.

The upkeep for our flock has become a bit more sustainable as the ranging allows much of their diet to come from the yard.  I’ve noticed a 25 percent reduction in their feed consumption … so in just four months the chickens have been able to meet and surpass my own eating-from-the-yard objective.  Perhaps we should consider bugs and grass as a bridge to 15 percent of our annual calories.  Perhaps.  Another perk to the free-ranging pecking is that the chickens take their waste with them and distribute it as fertilizer throughout the yard (and less beneficially on the porch), rather than concentrating it all in their coop, which means fewer cleanings.  And we get these funny personalities clucking around.

Lots of positives, but most of all good eggs, made fresh daily 50 feet out the back door.

Today we celebrate having grown, harvested, and eaten 1.009 percent of our annual calories from our suburban, less-than-a-fifth-of-an-acre yard.

To get to one percent (15,000 calories), we grew 33 varieties of 21 different foods.  Among those edibles, we ate 72 Husky cherry tomatoes and 14 heads of Little Gem Romain lettuce; 85 Snow Pea pods and 39 cups of raw Fordhook Giant Swiss Chard (netting just 272 calories — it’s worth more cooked, we’ve found); and four kinds of tomato, three kinds of carrot, and three kinds of potato.  We tried 12 varieties of vegetable we’d never tasted before.

We made jam.

Nearly a third of our overall calories, about 4,000, accumulated in the first half of June, a month in which we consumed bags of potatoes — with more still at the ready.  This month we’ve also eaten carrots (Purple Haze and Pink Dragon), green beans (Contender and Kentucky Wonder), Early Crookneck squash, a few strawberries and Anne berries, Mulberries, and Roma tomatoes.

And it all came without the baggage that trails industrial agriculture, the questions of where from and how dirty and at what cost.  Our property’s better for our sowing and growing, and with any luck our dent in the world’s ecology got a bit shallower.

Perhaps shallower still in these remaining weeks.

This leaves the question of the other percent.  We’re shooting for 15 percent from our yard, so for us the other percent is a big 85.  What do we do about that?  The answer to this question is as important as any decision we make about what grows or how it grows on our property.  If we satisfy this big giant number of calories irresponsibly, or without the ideals that we apply to our own home growing in mind — then what’s it all about?  We could easily overshadow the global benefits of our super local effort by satisfying the rest of our calories at McDonald’s or stocking our freezer with CAFO meats from 1,000 miles away or filling our bellies with international fruits and vegetables.  And we’d be missing our own point, which is a decidedly unattractive quality in a person.

So, what do we do?  Support local farmers who share our ideals and the markets that sell their work.  And the restaurants that cook with their foods.

We’ve been enjoying a nearby farmer’s market these past few months, and we intend to make it a regular part of our week.  There is something fundamental in shopping a place where all the food’s not pretty.  In San Diego there are dozens of farmer’s markets we’ve yet to try, but want to, particularly one that we’ve heard specializes in meats in cheeses.  We’re also planning on buying into a CSA with a few friends, which will support growers and give us access to local, seasonal produce — and challenge us to cook with ingredients we’re not used to.  Each of these options eliminates costly intermediaries between food and people, in the same way that growing at home does, and requires a more thoughtful relationship with what’s being eaten, how it’s being grown, and who’s growing it.

In terms of related New Year’s resolutions, I’m resolved to do better with the foods I buy, particularly concerning their place of origin.  I’ve been doing well the past few months in buying organic produce and range-fed meats (and in making meats a side rather than a main dish), and I’ve been shopping and supporting a market that shares some of my philosophy, but I could do better with figuring out how local the food is.  Distance takes some of the responsibility out of responsibly raised.

I’m also resolved to add a little foraging to the menu.  And by a little, I mean one act of foraging.  I’m keeping my effort minimal because this is way beyond my skill level and comfort zone.  But, I’m inspired by the author of Fat of the Land, which is by far the best food blog I’ve read.  And, foraging is a pretty ecologically sound way to go in terms of consumption.  What will I forage?  I have no idea.  I guess we’ll see.

With the other percent in mind, I’ve added two widgets to the blog (see sidebar at right).  One maps out all the farmer’s markets in your area (and there are probably more than you are aware of, with different specialties; this was true for me).  The other helps you find local and responsibly raised foods at a number of different places, including restaurants.  These will be permanent additions and will hopefully help anyone who is interested find a route to better eats — a supplement to the home-raised bit of calories, no matter what percent that adds up to.

Must read.

1. The Ominivore’s Dilemma, by Michael Pollan
2. In Defense of Food, by Michael Pollan
3. The End of the Wild, by Stephen M. Meyer

Should read.

1. When the Rivers Run Dry, by Fred Pearce
2. Citizenship Papers, by Wendell Berry

Could read.

1. Field Notes From a Catastrophe, by Elizabeth Kolbert
2. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, by Barbara Kingsolver

Skip it.

1. The World Without Us, by Alan Weisman
2. Coming Home to Eat, by Gary Paul Nabhan

This last book I’m working my way through now, and it’s a bit wandering and self congratulatory without imparting any real knowledge or sense of experience.  At best.  Which is disappointing because I had high hopes: It recounts a guy’s attempt to consume only what he can get from within 220 miles from his Arizona home (a bit far for “local”, but a great goal).

I have a “to read” stack on my desk that includes The End of Food, by Paul Roberts; Hot, Flat, and Crowded, by Thomas L. Friedman; Fast Food Nation, by Eric Schlosser; and Second Nature, by Michael Pollan.  That’s where I’ll be heading next, trying to read as many as I can before the spring semester starts and my reading turns back to student work.

If there’s anything else I should read, or any of the above that I’ve misread — drop me a note.

We have been saving snow peas for three or four weeks, dutifully blanching and freezing them until a combination of preserved peas and fresh-picked measured out to two cups.  We got there this past Sunday and made vegetarian split pea soup with our harvest.  Our friends Paul and Amy, who are always game for a good food experiment, helped shell the the 30 or so pods that made up the final, and fresh, bit of peas.  Then we cooked.  Then we ate.

The soup turned out excellent, made more so by the fact that this was our first meal where the primary ingredient came from the garden.  Every other edible from the yard has been either a side dish or a snack, but the peas were what the soup was all about.

Here’s the recipe (serves 4):

• 1 tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil (more to drizzle)
• 2 large onions, chopped
• 1/2 teaspoon of fine-grain sea salt
• 2 cups split green peas, rinsed
• 5 cups water
• juice of 1/2 a lemon (reserve the zest)
• a few pinches of smoked paprika
• a few small broccoli trees or a handful of spinach (optional)
• 1/2 cube of vegetable bouillon (optional)

Add olive oil to a big pot over medium-high heat.  Stir in onions and salt and cook until the onions soften, just a minute or two.  Add the split peas and water.  Bring to a boil, dial down the heat, and simmer for 20 minutes, or until the peas are cooked through (but still a touch al dente).  Using a large cup or ladle transfer half the soup to a blender and puree.  Return the blended soup to the pot and stir in (you should end up with a soup that is nicely textured — and green).  You may need to thin (water or stock) or thicken (flour) the soup to your preferred consistency at this point.  Do so just a little at a time.  Stir in the lemon juice and taste.  If the soup needs more salt, add more a little at a time.  Ladle into bowls or cups, and serve each drizzled with olive oil and topped with a good pinch of smoked paprika and a touch of lemon zest.

We used a whole cube of the bouillon, which was fine and didn’t overpower any of the other flavors.  Next time we will use more broccoli — we only had two small trees available from the garden, so that’s what we went with.  The onions were tasty and not as overpowering as they were being sliced (Amy, Paul, and Sarah took to switching off to get the job done), but next time we will use a half-onion less.  To get the consistency we want, we are going to try adding one large potato, and maybe even another half cup of peas, leaving a bit more to the un-blended portion for taste and texture (Sarah is opposed to this revision, but the super-majority in the house prevailed).

And, as a final note, watch the lemon zest (finely-grated lemon peel) — even a pinch can leave you eating lemon soup with peas, rather than pea soup with a hint of lemon.  We might do away with the zest after the next long harvest leads us to another two-and-a-half cups of peas from the yard.

Before the trimming, the 14-foot shoots of this Bougainvillea arced toward our pool and tangled in our redwood tree.  The stalks can easily put on a foot or more of growth each day.  Over time, the soft vines thicken and turn tough and woody like a tree.  But unlike most trees, the branch-like shoots of this vine wield inch-and-a-quarter, hooked thorns tipped in a mild toxin.

I came away from the work with my arms and legs utterly lacerated and a decent slash across my face.  I came away bloodied, the spikes having cut, and caught, and torn, and punctured through leather glove and rubber-soled boot.  In short, they did exactly what they were supposed to: They tried to protect the plant from me.  Despite my hedge trimmer and chainsaw, this South American native wouldn’t stay hit.

Getting close enough to a plant to cut it can provide a unique perspective: The menacing thorn that protects new growth, the specialized leaves, called bracts, that evolved to attract pollinators to an otherwise unassuming flower, and that carry the mature seed in the wind like a paper-mache glider.  This vine can be pared back from full, lush green to brown, dead stubble and in a week be resiliently sprouting away.  It can grow to 36-feet tall.  It can opt to be deciduous to survive a drought.

And it’s no passive resister, leaving cuts that redden and itch like a rash on account of the poison barbs.

A strange intimacy exists in becoming the victim of a plant’s natural defenses.  It provides an immediate ecological context that is often missing from our lives.  For most people, a plant’s defenses are easily avoided.  The reason for this disconnect exists largely in our no longer having to look at plants and decide if they are safe to eat, and if so, how best to harvest their edible parts.  Choosing produce from the market that is ripe or unspoiled hardly compares to making decisions in the wild.  And, frankly, some vetting has gone on before we get the opportunity to use our finely tuned senses to pick an orange out of the pile of oranges.  We are not the deciders.

When was the last time most consumers had to get around a thorn to eat a blackberry?  Or decide if that mushroom is the Amanita lanei they are after, or the Amanita phalloides that would kill them?

Or even simpler, when’s the last time most Americans had to put any effort into peeling an orange?  I can’t buy San Diego-grown oranges in San Diego, despite the excellent taste and superior quality of the fruit, because San Diegans refuse to be burdened by the struggle the peel entails.  Apparently it’s also not orange enough.  So San Diego County sends most of its oranges to Japan and India (where they’re quite popular), and San Diegans buy fruit that unzips easily from Chile and South Africa.

These are the kinds of frivolous carbon expenditures that encourage climate change and waste resources.

We’d be better for getting pricked by plants a little more often.

It seems like the small and vulnerable stage would be hard to avoid since all creatures pass through it at some point; I concede that I have no trick for bypassing this early development.  But not everything has to do it every season.  I watched my Gala Apple tree leaf out, bloom, and fruit without the slightest disturbance, and I wondered how such resilience could be transferred from the orchard to the vegetable garden.  (In truth, if a rabbit or squirrel had been able to take out this 12-foot tall tree, we would have moved.)

The thought of going all orchard crossed my mind.  But you can only have so many trees on a suburban lot before it looks crowded, and we’ve already got a plum, an orange, a Bartlett Pear, and two Gala Apples in the ground, and three avocados, a tangelo, a pear, and an almond waiting to be planted.  And we’re trying to protect our canyon view out the back.

We already have grapes, strawberries, and asparagus established (and hopefully producing next year), but what about more vegetables that stick around and toughen up so they’re less likely to get taken out by pests?

Perennial vegetables form an interesting set of crops, at least those that can be grown in my region.  Many of them strike me as near-edibles, the kind of thing that Bear Grylls eats on Man vs. Wild, not so much by choice but to survive.  And many of them have potent adaptations — defense mechanisms that help them survive year-round.  In searching for perennial vegetables for my space, I passed on a number of options because they require special preparation or else they are poisonous.  For experienced cooks or bolder gardeners than myself, this challenge might not be a deterrent to growing a number of different plants.  For me, I don’t want to end meals by wondering if I just poisoned my wife.

Despite this hesitation, I like the “not your mother’s vegetable” quality that many perennials have, the fact that you absolutely won’t find them at Ralphs, and probably can’t even find some of them at the farmer’s market.  Sure, some that I’ll try are common like our asparagus.  I found that lima beans, runner beans, and sweet potatoes can be grown as perennials, and I plan to try.  In the coming months I will also plant nine star broccoli; chayote squash; winged and hyacinth beans; ceylon, sissoo, and New Zealand spinach; perennial cucumber; and Egyptian walking onions.

If I can find them, that is.  As we have become a common crop society, limited by ourselves and mono-crop industrial farming, we have consistently reduced the acreage devoted to fruits and vegetables that fall outside the mainstream.  But these are growing somewhere.  All I have to do is find the person with the seed.

My hope is that these perennials will become durable lifers, that if I can coddle them along to adulthood once, or once every few years, they will be able to hold their own against my local pests and I can move away from caged gardening.  That they will bring some stability to my edible yard in the coming year.

As always … we’ll see.

Put another way, I could have grown 400 White Lisbon Bunching Onions, 300 Yellow Sweet Spanish Onions, and 300 Carantan Leeks.

I could have grown 1,200 Autumn King Carrots.

Or maybe not.  Even taking into consideration pests, disease, thinning, and successive plantings on some of those crops, I just don’t have the space.  Most people don’t.  And what if I did get 1,200 carrots?  I like carrots, but come on.  That’s carrots every day for a year even if I give away two thirds of that yield to — who?  The couple hundred people I know who trust me enough to eat something from my yard?  (For you regular readers, you’re probably thinking I don’t have to worry much about that kind of return, but I’m getting better — and some of these crops are easy.)

These enormous, space-consuming yields come from one, $1.89 packet of seeds for each crop.  That’s just the way seeds come.  For me and my space, that leaves a lot left over after I’ve planted my fill.  Typically I save them just in case of a crop disaster, but often by the time whatever ails my plants fells them, it’s too late in the season to start again from scratch.  Besides, that’s some pretty pessimistic seed hording going on.

Instead, we should plant with optimism and give away our remaining seeds as soon as the ones we’ve used hit the ground.  I tried this in the spring, a bit, and have done better with the practice this cool season.  In the spring I shared ground nuts and watermelon with friends and fellow amateur growers Paul and Amy Reams (who operate a fabulous wedding and portrait photography business out of San Diego).  Between us, I pulled six peanuts out of the ground and we all ate store-bought watermelon this summer.  But there was camaraderie in our lack of success.  I gave my parents tomato and pepper plants I’d started indoors, and while mine got eaten by pests, theirs made it to fruit.  This fall I shared all the cool crops mentioned above with my sister, Anna, and just this week she, her husband, and our grandpa ate salads fixed from her bursting raised bed (pictured above).

My sister never gardened before this season, and she’s doing great.  And in the coming seasons we’ll grow more edibles we’ve never grown before with Paul, Amy, and Anna, experimenting in good company.  And my folks will grow stuff, too.

Typically when people have a hand in producing some of their own food, when they see that it’s possible to step into their yard, pick something, and eat it — something they had no choice but to go to a supermarket for in the past, that they’ve only seen piled in a produce section — they tend to plant and grow something every season after that, even if they’re not gardeners by nature.  Because it’s so possible.  And so good.

Sometimes all someone needs is a handful of seeds and an encouraging word.  Every homegrown tomato is one that hasn’t been chemically raised and shipped and preserved and irradiated, that hasn’t been part of an industrial food system that devastates the environment and results in massive waste.

Yeah, you can save your seeds for coming seasons.  Some seeds last longer than others.  It all depends on how you store them.  But how frugal do you need to be?  Hundreds of seeds for $1.89, or so.

Didn’t your mother teach you to share?

However, by having a clear idea of what we mean when we mean it, we can better determine for ourselves whether some product meets our standards, rather than being wholly at the mercy of some company’s label, the criteria for which they have defined in their interests, not the consumer’s.

I’ve been thinking about such things while trying to create a context for the food growing in my yard.  Below are links to two articles that have helped me better understand what I mean by sustainable eating.  Check them out.

“Twinkies Are Not Real”

“The Movement for a Sustainable Food System”

I like the idea of fewer intermediaries between my food and I.  This preference has many reasons behind it, but for the most part it boils down to a concern and a belief: the earth cannot sustain 6 billion (let alone 9 billion by 2040) people living a business-as-usual lifestyle; the actions of one person are not in vain, but significant, in dealing with global issues.

Business as usual includes consuming outside of seasons (a New Yorker buying summer oranges and winter asparagus) and regions (that same individual buying an avocado any time of year), and blindly supporting a massive industrial food machine that manufactures everything from McDonald’s to Wheat Thins to corn with little transparency and against which consumers have little recourse.  More on all of this down the line.

We’re coming up on something fast and the effectiveness of a single person’s actions in mitigating that something cannot be ruled out.  The degradation of the environment and the decline in the quality of life that accompanies it is a global problem that seems to require a coordinated, global solution.  But what is apparent is that people think in terms of themselves most often because that is a rational, practical way to get through the day.  Big solutions become daunting, hard to imagine and relate to, and can be defensively forgotten.  What is needed, then, is 6 billion individual decisions to live differently, to consume differently.  In this, the individual act is essential, and all hope and responsibility for the future is not diffused within the crowd of a city, state, country, or hemisphere, but instead rests about a foot above the shoulders of every person, where real decisions are made.

So, where do we go from here?  Where I go is toward producing a significant portion of my wife and I’s daily calories at home.  I’ve set 15 percent as my first benchmark, which seems low and high at the same time.  Looking at that number I can’t help but think of all the scenarios where such an achievement would be pathetic.  I can’t help but think about the other 85 percent of my food (a far more robust number) and where it might come from.  I wince at the usual channels that are most likely.  Some who stumble across this effort might wonder why I don’t shoot higher, try for 50 percent or 100, even.  Those numbers almost certainly start getting into grains and meats.  I have every intention of growing some grain — look forward to it, in fact — but it takes up a lot of space, and I just don’t have the room for a subsistence-level effort.  As for the meats, honestly, I can’t really see myself butchering anything — at this point — and I’m not sure I’m zoned for slaughter.

However, I do hope that the 15 turns into 20 or 25 percent.  But that’s getting ahead of the now.  Just hitting that first mark is going to be a challenge.