OUR LOCAL FARMER’S MARKET IS OPEN YEAR ROUND, and I generally go almost every Sunday. Jammed with tourists in the summer months, it is quieter, but soggier in the winter months. For years I have contemplated getting a weekly or biweekly CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) delivery instead of going to the market. But I never seemed to get around to pulling the trigger.

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Last winter I was at an auction and there it was, on one of the silent-auction tables. I bid. No one else did. It must have been destiny. Two deliveries of a CSA box. The certificate sat around for months. Finally I pulled the trigger.

For an admitted control freak, the CSA box is an interesting exercise, and while initially intimidating, turned out to be lots of fun. Rather than head to the market with a list or an idea of a weekly menu plan, your box shows up with the best of that week’s harvest. It may or may not be fruits and vegetables that you usually buy, or in combinations that you are used to cooking with. It forced me to get creative, digging through cookbooks and Google-ing to find new recipes. I still have that one head of cauliflower left, but everything else has been used up.

CSA boxes may be more economically sustainable. Our boxes would have cost $35 each, and lasted more than two weeks, compared with the $40 to $50 I often spend weekly at the market. And farmers prefer it too, as it makes their income and growing plans more predictable and, therefore, sustainable.

I still enjoy going to the farmer’s market, for the experience and the community. But I just might start ordering a CSA box once a month, just for the fun of it.

GRILLING SEASON IS HERE. We love to grill: meat, fish, veggies, you name it. Through September we grill. A lot. With charcoal.

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I, of course, worry about the carbon footprint of it all. On the surface, it seems pretty straightforward: Charcoal grills emit two to three times as much carbon as gas grills. OK. Go buy a gas grill. Case closed.

Or not.

The Oak Ridge National Laboratory reports that charcoal is a renewable resource, while natural gas is not. Charcoal, which is made from wood, is part of a natural carbon cycle, thus having a net-zero carbon footprint.

Most charcoal is made of waste wood or, if new wood is used, it comes from FSC-certified sources. In fact, Kingsford — the gold standard of charcoal — had its humble beginnings as a way for Henry Ford to use his sawdust and waste wood almost 100 years ago.

But wait.

There are two basic types of charcoal, briquettes and lump. Lump charcoal is just that — wood that is charred until it becomes coal-like lumps. Briquettes, on the other hand, contain ground up lump charcoal combined with other ingredients. Those additives put particulate matter into the air and leave behind a residue; lump charcoal burns clean and leaves almost no perceptible ash.

This residue and particulate matter is the heart of the controversy over the environmental impact of charcoal grilling.

In response, small producers, Original Charcoal (sold under private label by Trader Joe’s) and, yes, even Kingsford now sell a range of “100% natural” briquette products.

Bottom line?

Stay away from lighter fluid and instant-light briquettes, which do put VOCs into the atmosphere. Beyond that? Since barbecue emissions represent 0.0003 of the total U.S. annual carbon footprint, go ahead and grill however you like. Just maybe think about taking the bus to your next picnic.

WHAT’S THE MOST ENERGY-EFFICIENT WAY to take the family on vacation this summer?

It depends.

A jet plane generates more carbon emissions per passenger than an average-fuel-efficiency car generates across the same distance. Add passengers, and car travel keeps your carbon footprint lean. Drive a hybrid or bio-diesel? It shrinks even more.

Of course it’s impractical to drive over very long distances — or overseas. Arriving at your destination, however, you have options.

Two summers ago we packed up the family for a trek across northern Europe. Flying into Frankfurt, we boarded a train in the airport and arrived rested and relaxed in Amsterdam four hours later.

For the next three weeks we trained between cities and used subways, trams, taxis and bicycles to get around town. It was liberating to not have to worry about directions or where to park the car each time we arrived in a new town. With or without kids, for planning a European rail trip, Rick Steves is hard to beat.

North America isn’t quite up to Europe on rail speed — yet. But that doesn’t mean you can’t get creative. Amtrak runs all over the U.S. and Rail Canada crosses the entire continent north of the border. Although many Amtrak trains are older and slower, routes like the Acela Express from Boston to Washington, D.C. and Amtrak Cascades from Vancouver B.C. to Portland, Ore., can get you closer to European comfort, speed and style.

When visiting places with great transit, ditch the rental car and spend the savings on an in-town hotel close to public transportation. Take transit, a taxi or shuttle in to town from the airport.

Whichever way you choose to go, have a great trip!

THE WORLD OF FITNESS OFTEN SEEMS TO RUN COUNTER to the green movement: plastic infomercial equipment destined for storage lockers, garage sales and landfills; millions of discarded water bottles; memberships to clubs filled with elaborate machines instead of local walks, runs and exercises using one’s own body weight.

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But some green fitness efforts are breaking through, giving the opportunity to feel doubly good about your workout:

• BPA-free water bottles address both reduce the mound of used bottles and concerns over Bisphenol A.
• Used workout gear is hardly enticing, but you can find new clothes and shoes made with recycled ingredients.
• A movement started in Great Britain helps folks get their exercise while working on environmental conservation.
• You can even use your workout to power your gym or (part of) your home.

And, perhaps one day, your daily walk will also charge your cell phone. Or much more.

OPEN AN ENVELOPE OF RADISH OR CARROT SEEDS, pour a few tiny grains into your child’s hands, and encourage him or her to sprinkle those seeds onto the soil. Within a few weeks, young leaves will emerge, soon followed by harvest time — when crops of veggies can be picked, washed and eaten straight from the garden. Your kids will have the healthiest snacks around.

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Gardening can be any parent’s secret agenda to teach children that vegetables and fruits don’t always come pre-cut and shrink-wrapped from the supermarket. My boys, now 13 and 17, learned to garden in a postage-stamp-sized city backyard where two 4-by-8-foot raised beds yielded organic raspberries, strawberries, heirloom apples, sugar peas, carrots and beans. While playing outdoors the boys were free to graze on fruit, vegetables, herbs and salad greens. Since we used organic practices, it was safe to eat straight from the pea patch.

Here are some more kid-friendly ideas:

• Make it colorful. Plant playful varieties of seeds, such as ‘Thumbelina’ carrots (2 to 3 inches long, they’re ideal for shallow or poor soil); ‘Easter Egg’ radishes in a colorful array of red, white, purple and pink; and ‘Bright Lights’ Swiss chard, with neon yellow, hot pink and vibrant orange stems (delicious and colorful in stir-fries and soups).
• Grow in small places. Plant all the ingredients for a delicious and fresh-from-the garden salad in a sunny window box. Even a single cherry tomato plant in a container will yield a menu-enhancing crop.
• Make room for herbs. Tuck basil, parsley, thyme and mint plants around the edges of larger containers or planting beds. Ask your children to assist you in the kitchen — send them out to pick the aromatic leaves to season a pot of soup or garnish the chicken. They’ll enjoy helping!

SPRING CLEANING SEASON IS UPON US! Unlike several of my close friends (you know who you are), I wasn’t born with the housecleaning gene. On the other hand, I have all sorts of environmental sensitivities. So I always approach housecleaning chores — and particularly cleaning products — with a certain amount of trepidation.

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Add in a concern for sustainable living, and where do you start?

The simplest thing is, well, the simplest thing. Back in the day — before television advertising à la Mad Men — people used water, soap, borax, baking soda and vinegar. You can still clean your house with just those five things. They work. They just require some lessons in household mixology.

They may not, however, be the most convenient, so off we go to Whole Foods or Target in search of the perfect product: one that will clean perfectly and make our lives easier, without harming the planet. With so many products claiming to be “natural,” “bio-degradable,” “non-toxic” and “eco-friendly,” how do we keep up?

The most reliable strategy is to shop for eco-labels. Eco-labels are third-party seals of approval that let you know the product has been tested for environmental safety. The Global Ecolabelling Network (GEN) is an international association of third-party, environmental-performance labeling organizations that promotes the application of credible eco-labeling around the world.

Two examples of eco-labels are the EPA and Green Seal. Clorox’s Green Works product line, for example, has earned both the EPA Design for the Environment and the Good Housekeeping Green seals of approval.

I LIVE IN A CITY THAT IS BESOTTED with recycling, a very good thing indeed. And since I work in a kitchen, I am constantly thinking how I can waste less and recycle more. Here are a few of my tricks:

• Reuse your plastic bags. We have a several-pronged dishcloth rack set up by the sink so we can rinse bags, turn them inside out and dry them on the rack. Over and over.
• Use glass canning jars for storing food. In addition to being able to see what’s inside them, you are using less plastic and exposing your food to less plastic.
• Use plastic wrap only when nothing else will work. If you’re carrying food somewhere, most of the time a clean dishtowel thrown over the top will work just fine.
• Use wax paper and wax paper bags for wrapping food and lunches. Again, you’ll be using less plastic and exposing your food to less plastic.
• Maintain a worm bin or full composting set up to get rid of food waste. Alternately, if you dig down deep enough (and it’s permitted in your area) you can also just bury food waste in the ground.
• Use paper towels sparingly – see how long you can make a roll last. Arm yourself instead with a basket of dishtowels or inexpensive bar towels.
• Water the plants with the water you used to wash your salad. I simply fill up my salad spinner, throw in the greens, swish them around and take out the strainer with the greens. Then I carry the water to whatever houseplant needs it most.

THERE ARE LOTS OF THINGS you can do for Earth Day 2010. Personally, I think one of the best — and easiest — is to give up bottled water and drink filtered tap water out of a safe metal bottle.

Why?

Well, for starters, most bottled water you buy in the store is nothing more than tap water and may, in fact, be less safe or lower quality than your local tap water. At the same time, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is growing, thought to be bigger than Texas. Made up primarily of non-biodegradable plastic from mostly land-based sources, it is making its way into our food and water supply.

What can you do?

• Tap the tap. Investigate your local water utility to learn just how good your tap water is. Local water utilities are required to make this information public and generally mail out a water-quality report once a year.
• Filter. If you are unsure about the safety or quality of your tap water, install a faucet filter or use a filter pitcher.
• Go metal. After all the brouhaha over BPA in plastics, choose non-BPA plastic water bottles or, even better, aluminum or stainless steel.
• Recycle. When you do buy a water bottle — and we all have those moments — make sure you get the empties into the recycling stream. Although PET plastic is recyclable, only 5 percent of plastic bottles make it into the recycling stream, with 50 percent going into landfills, and the rest “unaccounted for.”

So fill up your own metal bottle with high-quality local tap water. Save money, save the oceans, support your local water utility — and have a great Earth Day.

I LOVE TO REMODEL. Seriously. So lately, instead of disposing of old cabinets, I’ve had a local salvage company come in and take them out. For a nominal fee (sometimes even for free) companies like these will come in to your home, deconstruct and take away many different types of used building materials for resale and reuse. What could be better than that? Consider:

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• 200,000 buildings are torn down annually in the U.S.
• In Washington state, construction and demolition waste currently makes up between a 1/4 and 1/3 of landfill waste.
• Demolition of the average American home (roughly 2,000 square feet) produces 10,000 cubic feet (127 tons) of debris.
• Thirty-three million tons of construction and demolition debris are slowly decomposing in U.S. landfills each year, releasing about 5 million tons of methane gas—equivalent to the yearly emissions of 3,736,000 passenger cars—into the environment.
• The potential value of building materials returned to the economy by fully integrating deconstruction into the demolition industry is $1 billion.
• Full integration of deconstruction into the demolition industry could create 200,000 jobs!

Strategic use of building salvage, reclaimed materials and deconstruction has the potential to change the building and remodeling equation in more ways than one. You can use salvaged and reclaimed materials to create amazing design results:

• Research. Explore local and web-based resources to find kitchen cabinets, lighting, plumbing fixtures and more. You could find a special stained-glass window, vintage Hoosier Cabinet or even a stainless-steel soaking tub!
• Design. Designing with salvaged materials can yield incredible one-of-a-kind results.
• Construction. Talk to your contractor about using reclaimed materials such as brick, stone, wood, doors and flooring. Point him to local and national resources to help you both save money and save the earth at the same time!

SHOCKING BUT TRUE: I still don’t own a flat-screen TV. Not because I don’t want one. It’s just that every time I walk into my local Costco there are newer, better and cheaper models. So I wait. But I confess, I never really thought about the energy efficiency of my televisions. Until now.

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I don’t live in California, but if it’s true that as goes California, so goes the nation, then energy efficiency of our big screens is something I am going to be paying more attention to. Large flat-screen TVs — combined with their associated DVRs, DVD players, cable or satellite boxes, gaming consoles and other various and sundry peripherals — now consume 10 percent of all household electricity in the Golden State. Although California has the lowest state-wide per-capita energy consumption levels in the country, that’s still a hefty chunk.

The California Energy Commission is proposing mandated energy efficiency standards for flat-screen televisions up to 58 inches, increasing energy efficiency up to 33 percent beginning in 2011, and increasing to 50-percent reduction in energy consumption beginning in 2013. These new standards will simply be mandating the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Energy’s Energy Star ratings, which are currently voluntary across the country.

The California Energy Commission has an FAQ on their website explaining the basics of the program, including a downloadable list of TVs on the market as of September 2009 that meet their proposed 2011 standards.

Now I’m glad I haven’t yet bought one of these babies. I’ll be taking that list on my next trip to Costco, and may finally bite the bullet, secure in the knowledge that it’s as green as it can be, at least for now.