My weekend garden activities were cut short this past week. Violet and I took a day trip to Boston. We were privileged to hear a concert at Symphony Hall with Itzhak Perlman accompanied by pianist Rohan De Silva. We had great seats, although anywhere in the BSH is an audible and visual pleasure. Because Violet plays the violin and is musically inclined, she was a wonderful companion.

I tried to notice some garden topics en route and in Boston. For starters, along the Woods Hole Road, I began thinking about the almost universal use of foundation plantings.

I believe the practice started in the 1940s and 1950s. Ugly cement blocks were used for the foundations and needed hiding. I personally prefer flower beds or miniature shrubbery. Otherwise, most evergreens get quickly out of control, look untidy, rub the shingles off the house and facilitate mold growth, and harbor insect pests. Most of us do not keep up with frequent pruning; I only should speak for myself.

We took a leisurely walk around Back Bay and discussed the age of homes and streets. Many folks had seasonal window boxes and pots adorning the front stoops. I got a lot of ideas for next year. Many had still-blooming alyssum from summer, Halloween and Thanksgiving pumpkins, gourds, and grasses and some new heathers and tiny Christmas trees. Talk about covering all the bases.

Bacopa is another multi-seasonal annual. I’ve had it look presentable until almost New Year’s. Even the licorice plant looks good for quite some time.

By the time this paper hits the newsstands, serious leftover preparations will be in full swing. Hopefully a lovely day was spent with family and friends.

In the vegetable garden, I’m finally planting the garlic. Better late than never. In the past I’ve done it too early. It will sprout and die back once real cold sets in.

Apparently I waited a bit too long this year as it has turned chilly. At least we are not living in Buffalo. I rang my brother in Rew, Pa. Rew is right in the Western New York snowbelt notorious for lake effect snow off Lake Erie. Oddly, they only got a dusting when Buffalo got several feet. I remember growing up to see the ground disappear before Thanksgiving not to reappear until mid April or later.

Most Thanksgiving Day festivities involved sleigh rides, snowmobiles and some serious snowball fights. My dad was one of 12 children and the day was usually spent with Grandpa Bill, Ma Kate and dozens of cousins. I miss those times.

One creates traditions of their own as they raise children and age. Our family started years ago placing five grains of corn at each plate as was the tradition in early New England as a reminder of the first winter. The food supply of Pilgrims was so low that only five kernels of corn were rationed to an individual at a time.

The Pilgrim fathers and mothers wanted their children to remember the sacrifice, suffering and hardship which made possible the settlements of a free people in a free land.

They did not want their descendants to forget that on the day the rationing began, only seven healthy colonists remained to nurse the sick. Nearly half of their number lay in wind-swept graves.

Thanksgiving Day is the expression of a deep gratitude for the rich productivity of the land, a memorial of the dangers through which we have safely passed, and a fitting recognition of all that God, in infinite goodness, has shared with us.