A FARM FOR THE MASSES

Chris Yamamoto has long loved gardening “When we were dating, I actually wooed my wife-to-be, Sarah, with fresh vegetables from my garden,” the native New Yorker chuckles. “She was very impressed.”

After meeting in 2019, Chris and Sarah fell in love and began to build a life together in Connecticut. There the couple spent many happy hours cultivating a garden they lovingly referred to as “Quacken on Rutland.”

“It was then that I began to share Sarah’s love for flowers,” recalls Yamamoto, who married Sarah in June of 2020. “We added six pet Pekin ducks that we purchased online during the pandemic, and then after we were married, we added flowers to the garden.”

In December of 2021, the couple was forced to wave goodbye to their treasured garden when Yamamoto accepted a job offer over 800 miles away in the Chicago suburbs. Yet, the couple saw the move as one filled with opportunities in both the job and gardening sectors.

“When we came out here, we had a completely blank slate,” recalls Yamamoto of their eventual move to Barrington Hills. “We were really starting from the ground up, with no garden beds or anything. From all the lessons that we had learned in Connecticut, this was actually a fantastic opportunity to bring out whatever we had learned and make it better.”

The couple began to transform their 6.8-acre property, creating garden beds and planting seeds. Soon, a full and luscious flower field began to materialize before their very eyes.

“It was turning out to be pretty magnificent, and I told Sarah that we really couldn’t keep this to ourselves,” says Yamamoto. Today, this bucolic space has become a haven for not only a slew of hummingbirds and butterflies but also for countless nature lovers who have come to adore the couple’s u-pick flower field known as “Little Ducky Flower Farm.”

“What we are now calling Little Ducky Flower Farm is really a mix of what used to be a horse barn and a horse paddock when we first moved here,” he explains. “Now, we have sheep out in the field and ducks and geese. In another part of the paddock area, you can pick flowers. It’s a cute little farm experience that we’ve created.”

“In the springtime, we expect to have tulips as we have planted about 10,000 bulbs,” explains Yamamoto, who regularly posts about flower availabilities throughout the year on the @littleduckyflowerfarm Instagram page. “In the summer, we will have an assortment of zinnias, dahlias, cosmos, sunflowers, and amaranth.”

The couple is looking forward to sharing this idyllic farm experience with the community this spring when they welcome flower lovers to their floral paradise. Once Little Ducky Flower Farm opens for the season, customers will be able to book a time slot for their visit at littleduckyflowerfarm.com.

“When they arrive, one of us will greet them and will walk them through how to cut the flowers,” he explains. “We provide a container with water and a pair of snips. There has been interest from folks about buying larger quantities of flowers for DIY weddings and such, so we will be offering bigger buckets for them to fill.” The couple hopes to expand their community engagement in a multitude of ways.

“We want to start teaching some classes to both children and adults,” says Yamamoto. “For children, we will soon be offering free seed starting classes to help teach them how to grow tomatoes, while we will also be offering bouquet bars for adults where flowers are laid out and people can make their own custom bouquets. Most of all, we want to share what it’s like to farm and encourage all ages to learn more about regenerative agriculture.”

Yamamoto says the demand to learn more about farming is booming. “I’ve been very impressed with how fast interest in agriculture has grown,” says Yamamoto, who hopes to introduce more native plants and animals like bees and chickens to the property in the coming months. “Honestly, I think the pandemic did that. We couldn’t go anywhere so instead, we looked at the beauty around us.”

It’s a beauty that Chris and Sarah look forward to enhancing with each passing year. “In the summertime, we’re going to switch to summer cut flowers,” he remarks. “There will be a mix of dahlias and sunflowers. Compared to last year, we’re probably going to be expanding the field by almost another 100 percent. Anyone who has visited the farm before will definitely see a pretty significant change.”

Chris, who works in Rolling Meadows as a systems engineer in the aerospace industry, says coming home to Little Ducky Flower Farm has served as the ultimate blessing for both himself and his wife, who works in medical education as a medical editor and has earned an Urban Farming certification through the University of Illinois.

“I’m a big numbers guy,” reflects Yamamoto. “For me to come home to the farm is very grounding. Just being able to ignore numbers and really get back to nature always feels so very good. I can see myself living here for the rest of my life.”

For more information, and to book your visit, go to littleduckyflowerfarm.com.