welcome to the first bouquet of the Open Source Gardens in 2023. We will briefly review what happened within our movement since the last bouquet and glimpse on what is ahead of us. “Unfortunately” so many things have happened, they will not fit into this bouquet, ... but no worries, we keep it short and precise and hope you enjoy the read.

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OSG now has a logo and a corporate design

At the end of 2022 we have revealed our logo: The Open Source Dandelion. Since then we have taken several steps to create a corporate design and visual recognition effect. Our webpages have seen a major relaunch and we have produced stickers to also visually grow into the outside world.

Join our team!

We are looking for nice people to join our movement. No matter what your background is, where you live or what your favorite plant is, we welcome any contributions. Join us as one of our contributors, developers, translators, designers or anyting else!

If you find yourself somewhere in these roles and you like to join our cause and get to know other people who are passionate about Open Source Gardens as well, [read more background on what you can do]() or directly join our public Matrix room called OSG's Webroom: https://app.element.io/#/room/#osg-webroom:matrix.org

Actions and Presentations

Once more, and third time in consecutive years, from March to April, we have been running another seed spreading campaign #ConnectingGardens. Also we joined forces with Bits&Trees to spread Open Source Seeds on the Tech[no]fixes conference as well as re:publica. And we have two representations coming up: Erik Albers speaks about Open Source Gardens at the Bits&Trees meeting Berlin and we are planning a presentation at the Chaos Communication Camp. If you like to join us, send us a message and feel very welcome.

thank you very much for reading up to here and happy gardening!

Erik for the Open Source Gardens

https://opensourcegardens.info/connecting-gardens.en.html

Same Same but different

As usual, we send out starter kits including varieties of Open Source Seeds, but this year – apart from the usual suspects Vivaroma, Sunviva and Black Heart – including brand new varieties, one called Märchenglanz and the other two so new that they will only become Open Source licensed later this year: “Märchengranat” and “Märchensnack”. Be aware that the latter varieties (all “Märchen...”) are so brandnew, that this season there are just very few seeds available and unfortunately we can only send you a sample each. On the other hand, that means you can pioneer new Open Source varieties and we encourage you to save and share some seeds at the end of the season to help other people grow these varieties next year and get them spread. We send out these seeds together with a call to share pictures and stories online, in social media or other relevant channels. For example in our new Matrix room

Please help us to spread the good news

If you have friends who missed the activity last year or if you know people around Europe that could be interested in these starter kits or you know a community garden that should participate or ... let them know! Talk to them, forward this mail and help us share the news via social media.

https://opensourcegardens.info/order-seeds.en.html#springflowers

For this activity we send out the same starter kits from last year including seeds from Open Source Tomatoes Vivaroma, Vivagrande and Sunviva, Open Source Corn Lisanco and Open Source Chili Black Heart. We send out these seeds together with a call to share pictures and stories online, in social media or other relevant channels. For example in our new Matrix room

Please help us to spread the good news

If you have friends who missed the activity last year or if you know people around Europe that could be interested in these starter kits or you know a community garden that should participate or ... let them know! Talk to them, forward this mail and help us share the news via social media by boosting our posts on Mastodon and/or Twitter:

“Spring is around the corner and we send out another round of starter kits with tasty varieties of #OpenSourceSeeds to help you create a beautiful #OpenSourceGarden.”

https://sunbeam.city/@opensourcegardens/107790152321200005

By the way: If you did not save yourself seeds from last year and you are looking for new ones, you can of course also re-order a starter kit for yourself if you want. Just be aware that we only have a limited number of start-kits available so please only re-order if you are out of stock.

thank you very much for reading up to here and happy gardening!

Aimee, Lasse, Sun and Erik for the Open Source Gardens

If you like to receive our irregular bouquets and news directly into your inbox, subsribe to our news-list.

What has happened in 2021:

• #ConnectingGardens After initial spark during rc3 we created the Connecting Gardens seed spreading campaign. Thanks to many friends, donations and our network we have been able to get a variety of seeds, create a nice leaflet and infrastructure and finally sent out over 80 packages from Portugal to Austria, from Italy to Norway. Using the hashtag #ConnectingGardens, for months long we have seen a lot of very nice pictures from various Open Source Gardens in different stages and setups. Find some inspirational pictures at the end of the mail [1].
• Seed saving workshop Seed saving is not just food saving ... it is in the very heart of the centuries-old tradition and art of plant cultivation. In autumn we created the first Open Source Gardens seed saving workshop. The workshop has been recorded but unfortunately is not yet online. This is likely to happen in the following weeks.
• Another rC3 We have been participating in rC3 again with our open source gardens world. According to rC3 stream statistics this has brought several hundreds of people on opensourcegardens.info and we hope we have inspired them with the idea that sharing knowledge and garden technologies is fundamental the sustainability of our societies.

What is planned for 2022:

• Another seed campaign Thanks to the success of last year's campaign and seeing that we alread have an infrastructure set up, we run another seed sharing campaign. You will be informed once we are ready to start, until then we are happy for any helping hand. Because although there is already a running infrastructure, there is still a lot to for updating the sources. If you have interest in sending seeds or helping with designs or ... simply reply to this message.
• Community channel: matrix room We now have a public Open Source Gardeners* community channel in the matrix: https://matrix.to/#/#open-source-gardens:matrix.org We chose Matrix because it is small, decentral and open source technology. The Matrix room is a place to grow together, exchange knowledge about anything open source and gardening and a way to connect with likeminded people. Also you are welcome to ask questions, share knowledge and ideas, post pictures from your plants, or ... If you are new to Matrix you can read about the concept on Matrix.org or directly create an account on https://app.element.io/
• We like to grow with you At Open Source Gardens, we like to collect, present and share knowledge surrounding open source gardening technologies from seeds to Soft-/hardware to philosophy. And we are looking for gardeners*, friends* and contributors*. We need people who create gardens, ask the right questions and find the right solutions. And we need friends who help us with gathering and presenting this information. Designers, developers, seed savers, writers, photographers, seed sendings, artists, hackers, community spaces ... help us helping each other in creating sustainable and sufficient gardens, open for people and open for technologies. If you are interested now, reply to this email or let us know in the matrix.

thank you very much for reading up to here and happy gardening!

Erik for the Open Source Gardens

[1] see the blog at: https://sunbeam.city/@opensourcegardens for example: https://sunbeam.city/@opensourcegardens/105955265387964713, https://mastodon.technology/@mischk/106040519840129787, https://sunbeam.city/@opensourcegardens/106430922746427677, https://kith.kitchen/@absinthe/106509597930589146, https://mastodon.social/@3rik/106736944067586382, ...

https://ianus-peacelab.de/open-source-gardens/

In every starter kit you will find eight seeds each of Open Source Tomatoes Vivaroma, Vivagrande and Sunviva, Open Source Corn Lisanco and Open Source Chili Black Heart. Also included is a handmade leaflet with compact information about Open Source Seeds in general and tips for growing. All we like you to do in return is to actually grow these seeds, enjoy your gardening season and your harvest — and to please not leave them unattended somewhere in your shelf and forget about it ...

Of course, you do not need to grow all of them or all by yourself. Open Source Seeds are free to share with everyone. And it can be even more fun to share them with your friends and to grow them together or simultaneously.

Finally, once you received a starter kit, we also kindly ask you to connect with us online: Tell us about your garden! Take pictures of your plants and share them with us! Help us #ConnectingGardens!

Spread the word

Even if you do not like or can participate in our ConnectingGardens campaign, you can help us to spread the word about Open Source Gardens. You can now download a general Open Source Gardens leaflet as well as a special leaflet for the Connecting Gardens campaign. Print them out and put them in a place of interest or where you like people to see it, for example in your worksplace, a community garden, a shop, a hackerspace ... you know best by yourself where to put it : )