The photo above is clas­sic Charleston. Hav­ing long wanted to visit here, I elected to sign up for a tour with Road Scholar. A non­profit orga­ni­za­tion, they are ded­i­cated to life­long learn­ing. Our pro­gram was given through the Col­lege of Charleston. We enjoyed talks by uni­ver­sity pro­fes­sors on the Civil War, South­ern cook­ing, music, lit­er­a­ture and his­tory. Charleston is a beau­ti­fully pre­served city with no tourist traps; every­thing feels authen­tic. We learned that Charleston was the most pros­per­ous city in the colonies prior to the Rev­o­lu­tion­ary War, mostly due to the sale of rice. After the Civil War, Charleston did not recover eco­nom­i­cally until the 1960’s.

If you like good food you will not be dis­ap­pointed by this city. I had the best crab­cakes ever at Carolina’s. But as part of our pro­gram we ate most of our meals at the Col­lege of Charleston stu­dent din­ing hall –good food and really fun to mix with the students.

Sales:

• Fri­day, ¹⁰⁄₇ and Sat­ur­day, ¹⁰⁄₈ Fall plant Sale at Des­canso Gar­dens, La Canada/​Flintridge (www​.des​can​sog​a​r​dens​.org)
• Sat­ur­day, 10/​8 Fall Plant Sale by the Cal­i­for­nia Native Plant Society/​Orange County chap­ter @ Tree of Life Nurs­ery, San Juan Capis­trano (www.californianativeplants..com)

On the web:

• Sat­ur­day, ¹⁰⁄₈ Los Ange­les Arboretum/​Arcadia — Square Foot Gar­den­ing Work­shop for grow­ing veg­eta­bles in a small space (www​.arbore​tum​.org)
• Mon­day, ¹⁰⁄₁₀ San Diego Hor­ti­cul­tural Soci­ety Meet­ing — lec­ture on insects (www​.sdhort​soc​.org)