The Jane Minor BIPOC Community Medicine Garden is a remembering and a future.
It was brought to life in honor of the herbalist, healer and emancipator, Jane Minor and my grandmother, Jane Green who grew food, medicine and family.
The garden is a free sanctuary for BIPOC folks to come together to connect with the Earth, the Plants, the Community, and with themselves. The garden has communal beds for all members to freely enjoy, tend and harvest, as well as individual beds for folks to steward as they like, in accordance with our garden ethos.
The garden, located on Gayogohó:no’ land in Ithaca, NY, also has an orchard, high tunnel and community herb drying shed as well as a classroom space, lending library of herb books and tools, a free farm-fresh egg fridge, and the Jane Green Cabin, a free herbal medicine apothecary and new this season is the Rickie David Campground!
Classes, work parties, food & medicine mutual aid and garden events happen regularly throughout the growing season, check our Gatherings page or email for more details!
2026 BIPOC Community Garden Memberships
we are so overjoyed to welcome members back into the community garden this year. gardening in community, building land-based healing relationships, growing food and medicine, sharing the harvest, making medicine, saving seeds… these are all acts of love for humanity and defiance of oppressive systems. if you would like to join us in this act of love, please consider becoming a garden member!
members have access to all the food and medicine grown in the garden thru shared tending of our communal beds; members also have the option of individually stewarding a bed in order to grow whatever they like.
the two tiers of membership are Personal Stewardship and Community Builder. we are also looking for more folks to join the Garden Council in 2026 to help share in cooperative decision making and dream seeding for the garden.
all garden memberships are FREE from monetary cost and do require time spent tending the garden.
for more information about membership, please see our Garden Information and Agreements link below and if you are ready to apply and join us, please click the Application link below!!
How Our Garden Grows
BIOREGIONAL
We honor bioregionalism- looking at both the native and common, abundant plants of our region to help support and balance local ecosystems, including people.
BIPOC centered
As a space committed to healing from legacies of colonial violence on land and the liberation of all people, we believe the garden must center the needs of the most marginalized among us in overarching white supremacist, capitalist systems. We center and celebrate our Queer, Trans, Disabled, Chronically Ill, Mentally Ill, Femme, Poor, Immigrant, Refugee, Fat and Richly Melanated community.
No one is free until we are all free.
Reciprocity & Regeneration
We know land is not something to be owned or controlled. We build practices to attune ourselves to the specificity of this land. We know and care for the land as a very alive, highly intelligent, breathing, sensing body. We know the plants, the fungi, the soil, and the water as sentient beings that we are working with-in consensual, co-defined collaboration and towards mutual flourishing. Their needs, wants, and autonomy are as important as our own. Because of this, we believe all landwork must start with introducing yourself, stating your intentions, and asking permission–waiting to receive an answer before engaging, giving thanks throughout, and taking only what is needed. This receptivity, or intuition, is built through practice, through building greater sensitivity and a deeper relationship to the land and to plant and fungi ancestors.
We believe in our interdependence. Reciprocity connects us in relationships of care and responsibility to each other. The mere act of giving and acting out of abundance, trustful that that which has been given will circulate back to you, keeps us in webs of reciprocity- of mutual, collaborative flourishing.
Because of our commitment to these values, as a baseline everything in the garden is FREE for our members, including plants, seeds, compost, eggs, vegetables, fruits, fresh and dried herbs, herbal medicine, events, etc. There are also opportunities for garden members to voluntarily help offset the very real monetary costs associated with facilitating the garden thru a pay-what-you-can model for certain intensives, events and products.
The garden remains possible thru the work of many hearts & hands; and thru reparative financial contributions from gardeners like you!
Garden Migration from Violence to Sanctuary
After years of unrelenting racial harassment and threats, the Jane Minor BIPOC Community Medicine Garden was forced to temporarily shut down the majority of its operations in early 2024. Due to this ongoing violence, amanda, her family and the garden were then forced to relocate for their safety in 2025.
For more information about the multi-year struggle which lead to need for relocation , please see the following articles/podcasts:
We are excited to announce however that through the support of community near and far, the garden is once again flourishing! The relocation was intensely stressful and came at a huge cost; and the garden is now in a safe, beautiful, accessible location where we are continuing to deepen and expand expand our offerings to the BIPOC community!
We are so grateful to everyone who helped make the migration possible! Through community, we survived intense land-based racial trauma and from that we are now even more deeply dedicated to providing a community land-based sanctuary. We invite you to join us.