SOMERSET — She harvests what many of us choose to weed whack.

In two gardens covering approximately 4,000 square feet in her back yard, Denise Wolfe grows approximately 40 herbs. There are the well-known culinary herbs like peppermint and basil. And then there are the, relatively speaking, more obscure herbs, like mugwort and calendula.

And just outside the herb field, growing wild in the yard, is narrow leaf plantain, a useful herb often mistaken for a weed.

Owner of Blue Rose Micro Farm, Wolfe knows her herbs the way the produce manager at Auclair’s Market knows fruits and veggies.

“Most of the herbs, at this point, I make into extracts that are used as gifts for my friends and family,” Wolfe said on a recent Friday afternoon at her farm, 71 Pleasant St., “but for my business, I make a good amount of home and body care products. And so I make a lot of salves. I pick the herbs and dry them and I infuse them into organic oils. And from there they get turned into the salves that can be used to heal the skin, can be used as gifts.”

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She also makes bath salts, cleaning sprays, all with infusions from the herbs grown on her farm.

Blue Rose farm is not all botanic. Visit Wolfe in her back yard and expect to have visitors at your feet, the feathered-but-not-flying female kind. She sells chicken and duck eggs, the product of, surprise, her own chickens and ducks.

Wolfe said she has been using medicinal herbs since her late teens and gained extensive knowledge in the field while, in her 20s, working for a large company as an herb buyer. She subsequently worked in service and retail, all laying a foundation for her current business/passion.

The 1995 Somerset High School graduate said that when her children were born, she wanted to start making her own toxin-free, chemical-free home and body care products.

“It was much cheaper to make them myself,” Wolfe said. “And I started gifting them to my friends and family. And the business grew from there. And now we have an herb farm.”

In 2015, she started her farming career, growing food and raising chickens, while living in South Carolina. She returned to Somerset in 2018 when she and her husband, Kevin, bought their current one-acre property, not far from where she grew up on Old Colony Avenue. The pandemic slowed business, but Blue Rose is full speed ahead now.

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Wolfe became a certified herbalist in 2020 and has earned her Level 1 and Level 2 certifications from Farmacy Herbs in Providence. Last year, she did an internship at Farmacy Herbs’ farm in West Warwick, Rhode Island.

Locally, Wolfe sells at farmers markets, in Bristol, in Providence, at SOAM right here in town. She has also sold at the artisans market in Fall River.

Very soon, she said, she will be selling her “porch products” right at the farm. She also plans to hold, heading into the holidays, open houses where the curious can check out and purchase products in the front room of the house.

At www.bluerosemicrofarm.com, customers an order for pickup at the Wolfe house. In December, she said, Blue Rose will be offering free local delivery.

This article originally appeared on The Herald News: Somerset woman grows herbs, makes salves, oils at Blue Rose Micro Farm