At Winter Patriots Farmstead, our journey began with a 3 foot by 6 foot raised bed garden box in Ruskin, Florida. Billy was in the Marine Corps completing a bachelor’s degree in exercise science and Maggie was in nursing school. They both became acutely aware of the health of their family and the impacts that the modern food system had on their health. They came to realize the economic, political, and environmental vulnerabilities of that system and decided to control what they could control.

Over the next decade, in the backyards of four different homes, a single box grew to several boxes, chickens were added for fresh eggs, bee hives were added for pollination and honey, fruit trees were planted in front yards, and plants were propagated from seeds and cuttings to expand the homestead.

Billy spent a lot of time with his great great uncle “Bo,” a retired Air Force veteran, who still lived on land that his family settled prior to the American Revolution. Recognizing Billy’s love for the land and desire to build something that his family could carry on, when Bo passed in 2022, he passed the land to Billy and Maggie. This is the place now known as the Winter Patriot Farmstead.