Celebrating 5 Years in Business

Wow, who knew leaving a career in corporate technology, marketing and finance mid-life, to become a single female, organic farmer would lead to becoming a community grocery store owner, advocate and collaborator in building a local, regenerative food system in Placer County, CA.

It all started in 2011 when I was taking biodynamic farming and gardening classes at Rudolf Steiner College in Fair Oaks, CA. After three years of workshops and an intensive program lead by Harold Hoven, the idea of growing food was embedded in my heart and soul and I was authentically inspired as a wanna be farmer.

So, I literally bought the farm, a 10 acre property near Camp Far West Lake in rural Lincoln, CA. I dove in, whole heartedly, growing food, doing biochar trials, raising registered American Black Belly Sheep, with two horses, a mammoth jack donkey who ultimately did the mare, resulting in multiple baby mules over the years, eighty five laying hens, a season of raising broiler chickens, alpacas, two dogs and multiple farm cats. Lincoln Hills Farm became known in the community for the farm stand on the patio at Gypsy Chic Vintage Market, selling to local restaurants and chefs in Tahoe.

I quickly learned that you have to grow a s**t ton of food to be a profitable farm business so I started running an Airbnb out of the five bedroom farm house, becoming a super host, while also hosting volunteers who came from all around the world for a live, learn, work exchange program. I'm pretty sure that the old saying "it's a tough row to hoe" must have literally been referring to farming. The days were long but it was a lifestyle that offered so many glimpses of pure joy throughout every day.

In July 2019, based on the model of the Tahoe Food Hub, I started Placer Farmers Marketplace, an online community farmers market. Every week, our producers would post what they had available on our website, customers would place their orders online and every Thursday, we would bring it all together, set up on tables under canopies outside of Citizen Vine Wine Bar in Lincoln, where customers would come to pick up their orders.

The online market was instrumental in providing community access to locally produced food while giving our local producers a cost efficient marketing and distribution channel throughout the pandemic.

Today, five years later, The Farmers Marketplace is both an online community farmers market and a community grocery store and gathering space located in downtown Auburn. If anyone had told me ten years ago that I'd be running a grocery store I would have laughed.

My passion is clean, healthy food and although the days are long and I often find myself standing in the middle of a billion details, it is purpose driven work and I LOVE what I do.

Thanks to all of our farmers and artisan producers who are dedicated to providing food for our community. We are all playing a part in building a local, regenerative food system. Thank YOU for your support.

Let's see where this takes us all in the years to come... together we can do this!

In gratitude,

Tammi Riedl Founder, The Farmers Marketplace