Dear OSGardeners*,

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

And we do it again: We repeat our sseed sending activity #ConnectingGardens from last year and the year before to help people open sourcing their 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.

We have received a financial spark from Ianus Peace Lab for our Connecting Gardens Initiative. Thank you so much, this helps us to cover our costs and to run another #ConnectingGardens campaign next year.

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