Hi! I’m Alex Crofoot (she/her)

I am a queer cis woman, clinical and community herbalist, ex herb farmer (now homesteader) full-spectrum doula, herbal educator, mother, and founder of Bloodroot Herb Shop — a bioregional apothecary, tea house ,and community care space rooted in collective liberation, harm reduction, and radical accessibility. My work exists at the intersection of herbal medicine, reproductive justice, mutual aid, and creating a parallel care infrastructure.

My practice is grounded in the understanding that herbalism exists within complex violent histories. Much of what is now called “Western herbalism” carries knowledge shaped and preserved by Indigenous peoples and enslaved Africans whose contributions have often been erased, stolen and exploited for profit. I hold this reality with accountability while also honoring that every culture and region on this planet has carried plant relationships as survival, ceremony, and medicine. My personal ancestral work centers Germanic, slavic and Eastern European plant traditions alongside Appalachian lineage herbalism and reproductive care passed down through my family.

I was born in upstate New York among birch forests and farmland, raised with the stories from my Southern great-grandmother, who was a birthing assistant to her mother — a midwife and herbalist who served the Chestnut Ridge community and others in her region. This lineage of birth work, herbal care, and community responsibility continues to shape my reverence for plants and commitment to full-spectrum reproductive support.

I have practiced clinical and community herbalism for over a decade. My training includes study at the Northeast School of Botanical Medicine (and other trainings and schools) under an activist clinical herbalist who integrated free clinic models, street medic work, and community-based care. My work has ranged from dirt-floor forest clinics providing care for hundreds of people alongside ER doctors and EMTs, to free pop-up clinics, wound care in warming centers, reproductive justice, wilderness first aid, medic training, and clinical care.

After moving to Michigan in 2014, I founded Black Locust Gardens — an organic herb farm, plant nursery, and educational space distributing bulk herbs and formulas nationwide. In 2022, I opened Bloodroot Herb Shop in Ypsilanti, transforming years of farming, clinical work, and mutual aid into a brick-and-mortar apothecary and tea house, education center, and community hub. Bloodroot centers trauma-informed care, sliding-scale consultations, herbal education, free clinics, donation-based medicine-making events for houseless and underserved communities, abortion and reproductive support, herbal first aid training, food access initiatives, and autonomous community resource sharing.

I also founded the Community Care Camper, a free mobile herbal clinic serving marginalized communities throughout southeast Michigan.

My work focuses on reproductive transitions, pelvic floor and hormonal health, chronic illness, trauma recovery, digestive health, nervous system regulation, queer and marginalized community care, acute infections, and herbal first aid. I approach care through a clinical, evidence based lens, and also an animist, and harm-reduction lens informed by my ancestral traditions and lived experiences. I believe herbalism is not “alternative medicine,” but a parallel care infrastructure that can exist alongside pharmaceuticals and modern healthcare to increase autonomy and access.

My personal history includes incarceration, houselessness, sex work, and years living outside conventional systems — experiences that deeply inform my understanding of structural oppression, survival, and the necessity of community-based medicine. Herbalism, to me, is both practical care and political action — a way to reclaim agency, build resilience, and strengthen networks of mutual support.

Beyond clinical work and organizing, I am often found tending gardens, pit-firing pottery, writing, talking to animals, and mothering my feral child, Moss. Bloodroot Herb Shop exists not only as a retail space but as a living experiment in collective care — stocked with zines and resources on Black liberation, anarchism, trans rights, DIY survival skills, and community self-defense — alongside teas, tinctures, art, and remedies grown from land-based relationship.

My work is rooted in the belief that healing is relational, collective, and deeply political — and that plants continue to guide us toward connection, resistance, and liberation. check out the video below of a fun interview I did with Rosealee and Mason from herbalist after hours.

Bloodroot Herb Shop

Bloodroot is a bioregional apothecary and community space that centers trauma-informed care, herbal education, mutual aid, and radical accessibility. Beyond handmade products, we offer:

• Sliding-scale clinical consultations
• Herbal education classes
• Free pop-up donation based clinics
• Community-based medicine-making events that prioritize houseless folks and others underserved by conventional wellness spaces
• A Food pantry to encourage autonomous zones outside of hierarchical structures
• Free classes and events monthly
• Abortion support and more
• Herbal first aid

My Work

Through my clinical practice and community projects, I support:

• Pregnancy, pregnancy release, miscarriage, postpartum, and all reproductive transitions
• Pelvic floor health and hormonal support
• Chronic illness and trauma recovery
• Queer and marginalized communities
• Mental Health Concerns, nervous system support specifically OCD, depression, and anxiety.
• Digestive health
• Acute care for infections, colds, flus, UTI'S,
• Chronic Vaginal infections
• HPV, Leep and more
• Herbal first aid