Digging in the Dirt: Creating Intergenerational Connections Through Gardening

Camp Fire is lucky to have so many members of our team who have diverse backgrounds and experiences. Catherine Koons Hubbard is absolutely one of them. Catherine joined our team in January 2023 as Manager of Nature and Outdoor Programming.

Before coming to Camp Fire, Catherine was the?Director of Schlitz Audubon Nature Center 's Nature School, a Nature School and Forest Kindergarten located on the edge of Lake Michigan. Yes, you read that right. A Forest Kindergarten. How cool?!

Catherine also co-authored a book, "Partnering with Nature in Early Childhood: A Guide to Outdoor Experiences", which is both educational and practical in its mission to help adults incorporate nature-based learning in their classrooms, programs, and homes. Since joining the Camp Fire team, Catherine has authored a handful of articles, all centered around how getting outside is essential to well-being (check them out at the end of this article!)

It is safe to say that when it comes to connecting with young people through nature, Catherine knows a thing or two.

Saturday, June 1, is Intergenerational Day. The day is a reminder that people of different generations can learn from each other, and encourages connection among families and communities.

When we were thinking about how different generations can spend time together in ways that create shared memories and learning, we of course asked Catherine. In fact, in 2014, Catherine authored a piece for Community Playthings about gardening with children and how the messiness and imperfection of preschoolers throwing dirt around is exactly the point of the exercise. Though the process will be messy, the rows of seeds won't be straight, attention spans are a little short, and the garden may or may not be as organized as you would like, the time spent together in the dirt brings lessons for everyone - even the adults.

"It’s not about what they create; it’s about feeling the sun on our faces, seeing the flowers bend in the breeze, and smelling the basil as we sit with our friends. The point is for us to surrender, as adults, our ownership over the garden and give it back to the children. Of course that is what we do, all the time, as teachers, as parents, and adults. Our job is to help plant the seeds and then step back and watch them grow."

Catherine wrote that piece 10 years ago, but the need to get outdoors, off our screens, and in the dirt is even more pressing than ever. And our lack of connection has resulted in a loneliness epidemic, with young people and adults over 65 being the most at risk for feelings of loneliness and isolation. So we asked Catherine her thoughts on why gardening with young people could still be an excellent opportunity for connection in 2024, and how to get started:

Camp Fire: How do you see gardening together as a tool for connection in 2024???

Catherine: I still see gardening as a tool for connection, but what that looks like has changed over time. One of the things I learned over years of gardening with small children is that I had to relinquish any hope of a productive, thriving garden with lots of colorful vegetables. I had to learn to stop dreaming of little sunflower houses or bean trellis domes, or of zucchini patches and sky-high tomato vines, especially when gardening with children under 6. Maybe that’s possible for individual families, or for programs centered on agriculture and food. But in my experience, if what you want is a photo-worthy garden that yields baskets of produce, you’re going to end up doing nearly all the work yourself and the children are going to lose interest.??

However, if the desired outcomes have more to do with children getting their hands in soil, learning how worms help the garden, or wiggling their toes in mud, then what the garden ultimately looks like matters less, and what you plant isn’t important.

Connection is about the process.

I have grown much more interested in gardens that allow for play. That will look different for different age groups, but these days, for me, gardening is ultimately much more about the health and happiness of the gardeners than it is about what we plant in the ground.?

Camp Fire: Gardening is something a lot of people wish they knew how to do, but often feel intimidated by. What tips do you have for people who want to get started, especially with kiddos???

Catherine: One of my biggest breakthroughs came when I led a fairy garden camp for children ages 4 and 5. We spent a week making miniature structures out of pinecones, branches, and fallen flower petals. I invited the children to place their tiny fairy houses in our outdoor garden, which at that point only had a few chives, snapdragons, and marigolds because it was still early in the season. Suddenly they were playing a variety of imaginative games in the narrow spaces between the plants, which had never happened before. Maybe because in our past veggie gardens, the plants would sprawl out and grow big and scratchy, eventually becoming taller than the children. They didn’t invite children to play the same way tickly little flowers did.??

I ended up planting more colorful annuals, things that didn’t get too tall but that were bright and fun, like pansies and petunias. I invited parents and children to add to the garden beds so that they had a sense of ownership. We brought out plastic dinosaurs, biodegradable glitter, glass gems, all of which allowed the children to interact with the garden in ways they never had before.

To me, playing in and with the garden was a far better entry point for young children than planting seeds, watering, and weeding ever were.

These days, especially if I’m gardening with children under six, I usually plant a mixture of fragrant herbs and a whole bunch of colorful, hardy flowers that I can buy in flats at the garden center that don’t cost very much. And I leave lots of room between plants for the children to add plastic fossils (that they can later dig up) stones and shells, pieces of bark, fairy houses, and other biodegradable materials that allow them to make the garden their own.??

As we go into this Intergenerational Day, we encourage you to reflect on Catherine's words from 2014:

"At a time when more and more children are disconnected from nature, at a time when they are indoors more than out, literally opting for virtual gardens over real ones, I would encourage anyone who has ever considered planting a garden with children (or even just one child) to do so. I don’t have a blueprint for how to get started. Each garden is different.

But if you have access to dirt, you can plant. And if you make mistakes, well, that’s part of the fun."

Read more from Catherine:

• Nature and the Well-Being of Youth?
• Part 1: What in the World is a “Green Schoolyard”??
• Part 2: Green School Yards, Joy, Equity & Access?
• The Mother Tree: What Nature Can Teach Us About True Leadership