What’s for supper at Salakee tonight? Duck legs with duck-fat roasties and wilted chard? A Dexter beef brisket slow-cooked with garden carrots? Or perhaps a simple frittata of sunshine-yellow eggs and just-picked spinach? Join Kylie and Dave Mumford and their toddlers in their cosy kitchen at Salakee Farm on St. Mary’s, the chances are that no ingredient will have travelled more than a few fields.
“Most of our suppers are Salakee suppers,” says Kylie. “Being as self-sufficient as possible seems to make sense when you live on a slab of granite in the Atlantic that’s 28 miles from the mainland.”
Salakee’s Duchy-owned farmhouse has been home to Dave’s family for three generations and is where Dave himself was born. Its 37 acres have an idyllic situation, bordering Porth Hellick bay on the island’s southeast coast, whose vast strangely-shaped granite rocks look like a Salvador Dali painting. One rock supposedly resembling a loaded camel flanks a memorial to the unfortunate Sir Cloudesley Shovel, Admiral of the Fleet, whose body was washed up here after his ship HMS Association, came to grief nearby in 1707, drowning him and all 800 men aboard. To reach Salakee you follow footpath that’s fringed with ancient twisting elms and in spring, narcissi that have escaped from the neighbouring flower fields.
On the farm itself, beds packed with neat rows of chard and lettuces sit alongside sheds that resound to the cheeps of fluffy duckling chicks and pastures that are grazed by Primrose and Nancy, Salakee’s two house cows who provide the family with creamy milk and yoghurt. As the cows have calves, they’re are milked just once a day to ensure their offspring have plenty too.
The cows are a reminder of Salakee’s past when it was a dairy farm with a herd of British Friesians. Narcissi and early potatoes were grown too. But when Dave was 12, the cows were sold, and the farm gradually wound down. After studying at agricultural college, Dave decided to take Salakee over. He was joined by his new partner Kylie, who had come over to Scilly to help on the inter-island boats for a season and never managed to leave.
The couple cast around for a stand-out product and after meeting a duck breeder at a Cornish food festival, settled on duck, an island first. “We knew we wanted to produce healthy food for our local community in a nature-friendly way,” says Kylie. “Ducks were ideal, as the breed we chose flourished outdoors, and obligingly also fertilised our hay fields with their nitrogen-rich poo. We buy them in as one-day-old chicks.”
The duck proved a hit, snapped up by St. Mary’s restaurants including the Star Castle, Tanglewood and On the Quay. Mainland chefs got salivating too, including James Martin who featured it on BBC1’s Saturday Kitchen. “One chef asked if he could buy fifty, but we had to politely tell him we don’t sell off-island. Our ducks are for our local community,” says Kylie.
Rare-breed hens, seasonal turkeys and a herd of hardy Dexter cattle followed. The Dexters were chosen for their ability to survive just on pasture all year which means they don’t need carbon-guzzling imported feed. They are moved daily to keep soil structure intact, allow the grass to recover and create habitats for wildlife such as birds and butterflies. “This grazing system increases biodiversity while also building up the amount of carbon that’s kept in the soil, something that’s vital to combat climate change,” says Dave.
Right from the start Kylie grew her own veg “because I couldn’t find any organic produce to buy”. But three years ago, realising how much “free” fertiliser they had in the form of animal manure, the pair decided to establish a market garden producing vegetables to sell. They use “no-dig” techniques to preserve the structure of the soil. “Being a mixed farm with livestock we don’t need to import expensive artificial fertilisers or pesticides from the mainland,” says Kylie. “Instead, we use our animal manures and locally harvested seaweed to create healthy soils. Healthy soils create healthy food and healthy people. We want to leave good soils for our children and grandchildren too.”
The stars of the veg beds are salad leaves, from frilly salanova to lacey mustard leaves, baby kale and chard. Equally popular are Salakee’s colourful beetroots (including an eye-catching candy-striped Chioggia), rainbow chard, purple carrots, and bright pink radishes that three-year-old Artie eats like lolipops. “We like growing colourful things,” says Kylie. “It sells well and it makes us feel good too.”
There are even fruits for dessert too. Rhubarb and raspberries abound in summer, and soon islanders will be able to enjoy apples, medlars, plums and mulberries from 500 trees the pair have just planted with the help of the Woodland Trust.
Juggling the different parts of the farm while caring for toddlers can be challenging. But Kylie and Dave believe growing fresh, seasonal, chemical-free food for the island is vital. “Rocketing fuel prices mean the cost of importing food from the mainland is soaring, both financially and environmentally. That makes us vulnerable,” says Dave. “I believe the island should and could be growing far more of its own food, and doing that in a nature-friendly way. We are blessed with plenty of fertile land, and farmers with generations of know-how, so it seems crazy not to be feeding ourselves. Building up our resilience is key.”
Salakee Farm, St. Mary's
Image credit: adjbrown.com
