🌿 About the Maker

I’ve had an appreciation for plants for as long as I can remember, but my real journey with them began when my firstborn — now a full‑blown teenager — was just a baby. He had terrible eczema, and I started making our own soap to soothe his skin. Around the same time, I really began to see the value in feeding my family organic food, but we couldn’t afford the prices at the store. So, I turned to gardening to supplement our grocery budget, learning how to grow clean, nourishing food with my own hands.

I kept myself inspired by growing “cool” varieties — the heirlooms, the unusual tomatoes, the things you couldn’t find at the grocery store — especially when Romas were on sale for .99 cents a pound. That curiosity and creativity kept me tending the soil year after year, and it quietly built the foundation for everything I do now.

A little professional background… I began working in healthcare while I was still in high school, eventually attending nursing school and spending several years in local hospitals. Those years taught me how deeply people long for genuine care, but they also showed me the limits of a system that didn’t always feel aligned with my values. This became even more obvious to me during the pandemic.

In 2022, while still working in healthcare, I began studying community herbalism at Persimmon Herb School under herbalist Greg Monzel. That experience deepened my understanding of traditional plant medicine and helped me bridge my clinical background with earth‑centered practices.

A series of synchronicities opened the next door: I landed a dream job as one of the property managers at Little Mount Lavender, the largest lavender farm in Kentucky. I absolutely loved my time there! Working with the plants every day — harvesting, planting, tending specialty crops — showed me that I didn’t just love gardening… I loved farming. I loved land stewardship. When the other manager left, my partner Jonathan joined me, and together we cared for the farm and store properties. That season changed us. I loved the realization that homesteading wasn’t just a fun hobby to dream about, but something we could truly build a life around.

From there, I stepped into a role as the horticulturist for Jefferson County Cooperative Extension — affectionately known as the “bug lady” by some, others knew me as being the one who could ID “weeds” (in many cases, my herbal allies! lol) on sight. I taught gardening, plant identification, organic growing practices, and worked alongside UK horticultural and agricultural professionals. It was a place where my self‑taught knowledge, my herbal studies, and my hands‑on experience all came together. Budget cuts eventually shifted the role away from community programming, but the work itself remains one of my favorite chapters.

Today, I bring all of that experience — healthcare, herbal study, organic gardening, farming, foraging, land stewardship, soapmaking, and years of hands‑on plant work — into my small‑batch apothecary. Every tincture, salve, and offering reflects thousands of hours with plants, a deep commitment to ethical wildcrafting, and a lifelong relationship with the earth that sustains us all.

— Keisha Bruce, Founder & Herbalist