Clarkson's Farm (2021) s01e07 Episode Script
Fluffing
With the all-hands-on-deck
harvest frenzy nearly upon us,
I had to work fast to complete
all the other projects
I'd started earlier in the
farming year.
And so, with the sun continuing to blaze down from a cloudless sky, I decided to begin with what I thought would be the coolest job of them all.
Seven hundred glass bottles.
Helping to set up our newly-finished water bottling plant.
This is a speed James May would call supersonic.
Like your hat.
Groovy, right? I then discovered that housing the bottling plant in a metal shipping container hadn't been my best idea.
It's too hot for words.
Okay.
Hang on.
Let me just show you how it finishes off.
48.
6 degrees at that, at head height.
- Okay, and then - 48.
6 degrees.
Okay, look, I'm gonna show you how it kinda works.
There we go.
There's two going.
The weight is a little under.
Okay, that one is perfect.
Then you take a cap, Jeremy, okay? Screw that on, keeping an eye on over yonder.
And then you go to the hot box and go like that and then you're just a quick second in here.
- Ooh, is that the labelling? - Yeah, but I haven't There's a bit of Look, there we go.
That worked.
-No, it didn't.
You've made a mess.
-I didn't.
No, it's perfect.
- It's not perfect.
- No And then I take it off.
Any more bottles? Okay, I need some more.
Okay, and then okay, that's not good.
Um, and then, sorry.
Je In your own time.
There, a bottle.
- 49.
7 degrees.
- It's really hot.
If it reaches 50 degrees, we're allowed to go on strike.
- It's hot.
- Holy shit! Finally, though, England reverted to type.
The end of the drought was all anyone in the area could talk about I think.
I don't have to hear about your one with a bigger What have I put me head into here? Well, you know, I mean, I've done Yeah.
Excellent.
All right, thanks, Gerald.
I went down the side of old Green Wood on the old electric fence.
I mean, that was, like, you know, for horses.
Okay.
So up there, the guinea pig, two of them there was and they tried to get out before I could get in the gate and I thought, "My God, they will be acting the goat.
" Yeah.
Well, not at your age now you wouldn't.
Brilliant.
All right.
We'll let you get on.
Okey-dokey.
I then headed for the farm shop where Lisa had been hard at work and finding new things to sell.
It's an actual shop.
I know.
Smell the strawberries.
Aren't they delicious? No, no, no.
Don't eat them.
- They're so good.
- Unless you want to buy them.
And cakes.
Loads of cakes.
Holy cow! It's a proper shop.
Piccalilli, I love piccalilli.
Fruity chutney.
God, we've got everything.
Yes.
The milkshakes, I've sold, and they apparently are delicious.
-So, we've got cheese, milkshake Cream.
What's in here? My word! We've had a run on the sausages.
- Sausages, bacon.
- Yeah, yeah.
Sausage rolls.
- Rump steak.
- Yep.
Burgers.
God, wait until the camp site.
-You know they're reopening on the fourth? -Yes.
Can I Can I just ask? Simple question.
You know the planning permission says everything has to come from within 30 miles? Yes.
That it has to be a local shop for local people? Yes.
Is this a Cotswold pineapple? No.
No, but I was low on stock.
- And these avocados.
- Yes.
Again, not that local.
No.
Well, they came from one of the shires.
- I'm not sure which one.
- You know, eating two of these They don't come from a shire, they come from South America.
Shire.
Eating two of these does more environmental damage than driving a Volkswagen Polo for a year.
No way! That's bad.
I'm not gonna stock avocado anymore.
So, apart from those eggs, okay, there's nothing in here that I can see which is from our farm.
Well, meet me halfway.
Give me anything.
- Grow something, make something.
- I am growing things.
Do something.
I've nothing in here from you.
At that moment, His Cheerfulness arrived.
- Hello.
- Hey, Charlie.
Charlie.
Wow! This looks absolutely fantastic.
It's good, isn't it? Well, just 'cause Lisa's done something, you like it? - No.
- That's what it is.
It looks genuinely looks smart, doesn't it? How local are the pineapples? Cotswold pineapples.
Are they really? Avocados? Cotswold.
And and what about margins? Have we We haven't really done a budget, have we? I like budget.
- You know how I like - I know.
I like to know that the bottom figure doesn't have - I'm working on about 40%.
- Okay.
It's 40% on everything? - More or less.
- Okay.
Ever the gentleman, Charlie then had a quiet word with me out of Lisa's earshot.
So, just on pricing, - with a 40% markup - Yeah.
Wholesale price of strawberries £2.
80, sold for £3.
50, 70p.
It's 25%.
That's Lisa's maths.
So we ought to just I'm not blaming I didn't know.
No, I'm just saying that they learn differently in Dublin.
Maths.
Well, we just need to check that we've got appropriate prices for everything.
Okay.
On the subject of Lisa's plea for more farm produce, there was something I could do, because my quarter of a million bees had had enough time to make some honey.
Burn, baby, burn! I'll have no biting from you today.
Here we go.
When I got stung last time I was here, my foot throbbed for four days.
I mean, really throbbed.
And then itched so violently I wanted to saw it off, my whole foot.
Here we go.
Look at all that bee juice.
Holy Mother of God, that's a lot of honey.
Excellent.
So exciting.
I've just thought.
I'm going to be driving back and all the loose bees are going to go in the car.
Yeah, not much I can do about that.
Shit! Christ! I've got one in my suit.
How the fucking hell's that happened? Argh! And it's stung me right in the arse cheeks.
This really, this is bad.
Agh! Having taken a brave pill, I stacked up the remaining trays and set off with my unwanted passengers.
I can hear them.
Listen.
How can it be legal to drive with a beehive in the back of your car? Agh, I can feel that buttock growing a third buttock.
Worst journey of my life.
Talk among yourselves.
I am just applying Wasp-Eze to my own arse crack, 'cause the crew won't do it.
I just don't believe this.
A lot of bees there.
With my third buttock now numbed, I started to sort out my bee juice.
Look at this.
Look at that.
A slab of beeswax, which could be used as furniture polish, floor polish.
Percussionists use it to make tambourines make a better sound.
It's used in accordions.
Madame Tussauds, they made all their waxwork models out of beeswax.
The wax, in the olden days, used to sell for 14 times more money than the honey did.
My next task was to extract the honey using something called a spinner.
Look at this.
The important thing here is to be gentle, so you get the honey without damaging the honeycombs.
This is all honey down in here.
All honey.
Um God, look what's happened here.
But, despite the damage Look, look, look, look, look, look! My first jar of bee juice.
The next day, with the honey all packaged up, I picked some of my vegetables.
Look at this.
Whoa! That is vivid.
And then, laden down with actual produce from my own farm, I proudly headed to the shop.
Wow! Right, so that's the first batch of honey.
I've got more coming later.
And then Wow, how did you do this? Chard? You've brought it in a bag from our closest competition.
God, I have.
It's a very fine food shop half a mile down the road.
The honey is fantastic.
How much do you want to sell it for? Well, I saw in Daylesford the other day, half that was £20.
Half that? And it was £20.
I think you can easily go - £7? - For those No, more.
- Really? - Yeah, more.
I've worked bloody hard for that.
I've been stung twice.
I'm not selling it for £7.
£10.
- £8.
50.
- They stung No.
Sorry, are we holding you up? Sorry, there's a customer.
Then the price issue got even worse.
A lady's just come in.
She said, "Well, I'll give you £6.
50 for it," and Lisa said "Fine.
" She just happened to capitalize on an argument and now she's getting that honey for £6.
50.
Yeah.
They arrived in this morning.
It's just, this isn't how Asda is run.
They don't ask the customers how much they'd like to pay.
- Yep.
- Do you take cards? We do.
Only cards now.
Yes.
Um, if you'd like Whilst I was having a sulk, Kaleb arrived in his new toy.
Look at this.
That's actually very cool and I just heard you go by earlier.
Did you? - It does make a good sound.
- It's nice, isn't it? Nice.
So, this was your styling then, the black bonnet, black roof? Yeah, black bonnet, black roof, black spoiler.
I bought the new spoiler for it.
-I had the windows tinted as well.
-Of course you did.
So, basically, when I bought it, two days after having it, driving out of Long Com at 60 miles an hour, this comes up like that, folds over that.
That bit here was bent in.
What, the roof? Yeah, the roof was about that far from my head in the cab.
- What, just from the bonnet? - From the bonnet.
Why did the bonnet catch give up? Because apparently it's a thing you've got to look out for on these.
They rust away.
And this is your first proper car, isn't it? It's my proper dream.
This is my dream car, this, ever since I was a kid.
What, you wanted a 350? My only slight concern is this is a GT car.
- A Grand Tourer.
- Yeah.
A long-distance car.
But since you never go further than three miles from where we're standing now Yeah.
-Where's the furthest you've been in it? -Um, Banbury.
- Ooh, 12 miles.
- Twelve miles.
That's it.
What, and then you got scared? Then come home.
Also.
Are you wearing a hairband? Yeah.
A hairband to keep my hair out of my face.
Is that because - you haven't had a haircut for - Yeah, for ages.
On the 27th, though, I'm getting it permed.
You're going to drive around in this car with a perm? Yep.
- Yeah! - Watch out, Chippy! After Vidal Sassoon had left, I went into the woods to see my wasabi plants, which I'd decided were now ready to be turned into cash.
Sadly, though, the recent heatwave had taken its toll.
Um, as you can see, everything I've planted at this end of the bed has not just died, but totally disappeared.
It's got 27 plants, which means 73 have died.
This end, where there's still quite a lot of water coming through, things aren't too bad, though.
Yes! Look at him.
Hello, look at the size of him! The good thing is, all the restaurants recently re-opened and the chancellor is even paying people to go and eat in them, so I can get that down to London, get it into some Japanese restaurant and they'll be amazed.
Because I was so busy, obviously I couldn't spare the time to go to London.
But, luckily, I knew just the man for the job.
He'd only been to the capital once, on a school art trip, and he'd been so scared he hadn't dared get off the coach.
But he's all grown up now and, at the very least, I figured the trip would give him an opportunity to drive his new car.
But no.
A few things you're gonna need to know.
Have you got your ULEV? What's that? Ultra-low emission.
That diesel engine was made before 2015, yeah? Yeah.
So, you're gonna need to pay that congestion charge.
You're gonna need at least 15 apps for your parking, for all the different companies.
And every single thing you can do in the countryside you can't do in London.
If you get stabbed, right, they won't have that on CCTV.
You make a cheeky left, they will.
How the fuck do I pay an ingestion charge and stuff like that? - What is that about? - You make a call.
I can't just Why can't I But don't make a call while you're driving.
Why would you do that, then? Or you can do it on an app, and the ULEV as well.
Don't forget that.
It's about 28 quid to drive into London in this.
Well, it's free round here.
Yes, I know everything's free around here.
Every single thing you can do around here, everything, you can't do in London.
I think we've got the jobs a little bit wrong today.
Go to London, sell wasabi.
Don't take less than £300 and I'll see you back here tonight.
- £300 per kg? - Yeah.
- All right.
- It's valuable.
See you tonight.
Yeah.
He's genuinely nervous.
In 100 yards, turn left onto Church Road.
This route avoids congestion on A40 in London.
You are on the fastest route.
You will arrive at 9:29 a.
m.
What? There ain't congest Congestion.
I'm in Chadlington.
One mile.
One mile for what? All right, here we go.
I am officially leaving Chadlington.
My palms are really sweaty.
Like, really sweaty.
Going on the motorway? Right, here we go.
-Continue on the M40 for 27 miles.
M40 for 27 miles? Jeez! If Kaleb thought things were bad for him, they were worse for me as this is the time of year when farmers apply for their grants.
This meant I had to tell the government exactly what I was growing.
That meant paperwork.
I've been looking forward to today, 'cause I love form-filling.
Yeah, yeah, it's quite a useful few hours, because, um Hours? - Yeah.
- So, this form Yeah.
Which is hundreds of pages long It's 22 pages long.
I've got better things to do with my time than this.
- But it's We've got - How much do they pay? Because whatever it is, I'd rather pay it myself than fill in a form.
Really? - 360 hectares you have - Yeah.
And they'll pay you £220.
So that's £82,000.
Right, I'll fill in the form.
So, the first thing we'll need is a farm map.
So, there's the map.
And there are certain codes.
So, you see that that there says So that's wheat.
Why is it wheat? Because that's the code for wheat, Jeremy.
- What's AC17? - Maize.
- What's PG01? - Permanent grass.
- What's WO25? - Those are woodlands.
Have you ever flown into a really, sort of, let's say developing world country and they give you a massively complicated immigration form? - Burma, for example.
- No.
And you know when you fill this in, which takes an hour or Cambodia they put it in the bin.
That's what going We are This is developing world nonsense, this is.
So Right, so there's how many fields on the farm? I've forgotten.
There's about 42.
So, there's Dead Man.
- Yeah.
- So - So, we have to go - That's got wheat in it.
Yes, but it's got last year's crop in it at the moment, which was oil seed rape.
So, we have to go through this.
But it's got wheat in it.
Yes, but as far as the government are concerned Well, it hasn't.
It's got I know it's got wheat in it.
I've seen it.
They don't know that yet.
You have to be accurate, Jeremy, about Meanwhile, 70 miles away, Sir Ranulph had finally arrived in the center of a COVID-quiet London.
Not that he saw it that way.
Where am I? In there, in here? What is going on? In 100 yards, use the second from the left lane to turn left onto Piccadilly.
Then use the second from the left lane to turn slightly right onto Duke of Wellington Place.
What? No, not a chance in hell.
I'm going straight on.
At the roundabout turn left.
Turn left onto Constitution Hill.
-Take the first left on the roundabout.
I don't understand.
Don't keep telling me to turn left! -Turn right into Grosvenor Place.
What are you beeping me at? Dickhead! Hello.
Just cut right in front of me, why don't you? From the right lane, turn slightly right onto Piccadilly, then use the left two lanes to turn left to stay on Piccadilly.
What? No, no, no, no.
I need to go there.
Sorry, friend.
Congestion charge.
Jesus! Ultra-low.
Turn left onto Old Park Lane.
Great.
No left turning.
You're fucking having me on! I'm meant to go left down there.
I've got to go left here.
I am looking for a restaurant called Nero.
Nero, Naro, Nero, Noro, Naro.
Eventually, Kaleb found the restaurant he was looking for.
All right, where do I park? Come on, park.
Pay by phone.
Sorry.
We're unable to park you in this location as its restrictions do not allow your vehicle type.
Please look for alternative parking locations nearby.
Thank you for calling Westminster's pay-to-park service.
To find out more available ways to pay, change your card or vehicle details What is going on? Or download VAT receipts.
Enter your card's expiry date exactly as printed on the front of the card.
To find out more about alternative ways to pay, change your card or vehicle details or Shut up.
Right.
That's that done.
Ten quid just to park here for an hour.
Hello.
What are you doing? Trying to open the door.
Why? I haven't got any gloves and it's London.
How are you doing? Are you all right? I've got some wasabi for you - La, la, la, la, la.
- Off the farm.
Yep.
So Jesus! Have you tried your wasabi? - To eat? - Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Nice.
I like it.
I didn't have it on any fish, mind.
I had it on, like, a ready salted crisp.
Yeah.
I'm more like a roast dinner chap, you know? A proper roast dinner.
Well, we try, yeah, your wasabi.
Nice, like, creamy.
I can smell.
Nice one, nice one.
Very good, very good.
And do you want to buy the wasabi? Are you interested in Not too much.
Not too much.
If you look at it, though, it's top-quality Chadlington wasabi, that.
Quality good, right.
But the wastage, there's so much wastage because of the size.
Yeah.
So, we need to have, like, a bigger size, otherwise, like, too much.
- Too much waste? - Yeah.
Right.
Okey-dokey.
-Well, thank you very much for everything.
-Thank you very much.
-I'll try my best to grow a bigger one.
-Good stuff.
No! Sixty-five quid? Full charge 130 quid? With Kaleb losing the profits he hadn't made, I was busy regretting planting so many different vegetables.
Broad beans, beetroots, chard, peas, swede, kohlrabi, turnip, cabbage, leeks, pak choi, rhubarb, broccoli, cauliflower, kale and marrow.
Yeah.
Now, the government has a code, obviously, for all of those.
- Yeah.
- Broad beans has got a code? Broad beans has a code.
- I have to look those codes up.
- Yeah, look them up.
And then tell them exactly how much.
What do they want it, in centimeters? - Square meters will be fine.
- Square meters.
You've got to do it to four decimal places.
If you see, we've got four decimal places.
They want it to with They want it that tight? Yeah, it's very accurate now.
Can't you just write vegetables? Can we guess? There isn't just You could, but then if you're wrong, they might implement a penalty, and, you know, they have got eyes in the sky now, so, you know, there's satellite images.
Are you telling me the British government is photographing my farm from space to see what I'm growing and doing with it? Absolutely.
Desperate to make some money from the trip, Sir Ranulph, aided by his chatty satnav Harley Street, then turn left onto was now looking for the next restaurant.
Turn left onto Curzon Street, then turn Head southeast on Stanhope Row towards Shepherd Street, then turn right onto Hertford Street.
My God! Turn left onto The Mall.
Look at that.
Is that where the Queen lives, in there? At the next restaurant What have you got to offer? This is the wasabi that's grown on the farm in Chadlington.
-Do you know where Chadlington is? - Chipping Norton? - No.
Kaleb was in full salesman mode.
I've been told, come away from my boss, £300 a kg.
£300 a kg? You're dreaming, mate.
Let's have a look here and see what you've actually managed to produce? Yeah, let's have a look.
-So, there you go.
204 grams.
Really, if you're gonna clean it down you've probably got more like 150 grams, let's be honest.
Yeah, all right.
150 grams.
What's that? A tenner? I'll give you ten quid for it, mate.
That's a good deal.
I reckon we do a deal.
Go £15.
- I'll give you ten, mate.
- Twelve.
Ten it is.
Okay, deal.
It just cost me £10 to park.
There you go.
You pay your parking for free.
In 200 yards, turn left onto Lancaster Place.
A301.
We are off to the Shard now.
Something called the Shard.
I want to get in there, get it sold, get out of there, go home.
I've had enough.
This is probably a good time to reveal that the only thing Kaleb hates more than cities is heights.
Don't tell me that's the Shard.
You are winding me up.
Jesus! Jesus, Jesus, Jesus! Don't look at the levels, don't look at the levels, don't look at the levels.
32nd floor.
That's horrible.
Doors open.
Still, at least the trip was completely pointless.
£25, 100 grams.
- Let me digest that and I'll - Yeah? Yeah, I'll give you a call.
-You're sure you don't want to buy it now? -Unfortunately, not now, no.
Shit! Okey-dokey.
Cheers.
Mum.
Hello.
My signal is bad.
I'm up the Shard.
Ever heard of it? It's like a big building in London.
It's not very good.
It's like 1,000 feet up in the air.
Look, I've got to go, all right? - Who was that, Kaleb? - That was my mum.
She was worried about me.
She's seen me on the family map thing and said, "Why are you in London?" I'm like, "I'm up the Shard.
" She goes, "Where?" "The Shard in London.
" I must admit, it's quite a nice view, actually.
It would be better if there was, like, a farm, fields, hills.
- Are you all right? - No, not really.
Today I have made nothing.
After Kaleb's failure to sell the wasabi in London, we put it in the farm shop where it rotted.
And that wasn't the end of the bad news.
God above! Because Lisa's definition of local produce had come to the attention of the authorities.
I've had an annoying email from the council which says that, um, the stuff we sell in the farm shop has to be from a producer based solely within West Oxfordshire's district boundaries and they're saying that some of the pâté and cheese and what-have-you is from Gloucestershire.
I mean, there's a pandemic going on.
Millions of people are unemployed.
We have a little business that now has five people on the payroll, we're supporting local farms and local businesses and now we have to have an enforcement case opened on us.
I mean, God, give me strength! Fortunately, I had already had a genius idea for making the produce very local.
All right.
I put the bee honeycomb stuff.
I'd decided to turn my spare beeswax into scented candles.
Taking my inspiration for the scent from a Hollywood A-lister.
What do you think of that? And not just lavender.
A spring onion.
Just a hint of broad bean.
And there we are.
Let that set.
At the shop, Lisa was delighted with the results.
You cannot label that "This smells like my bollocks.
" You just can't.
Gwyneth Paltrow has made a fortune from her candles which smell like her vagina.
Do you think these will sell more because it smells like your bollocks? I've also Look, "These beeswax scented candles were handmade by Jeremy Clarkson.
You'd never know it, but it's true," and I've signed it to prove I made them.
Meanwhile, down at the trout pond, Kaleb, now safely back in his natural habitat, was busy protecting another source of revenue.
I am putting a fence up.
An electric fence up.
We've seen a couple of dead fish on the side.
Poor fishy.
It's got some puncture wounds on it.
So, Jeremy put a trap camera down here to see what was causing the fish to die.
Turned out there was an otter.
So, I'm putting up an electric fence around the outside of the pond where the fish are, to try and stop that otter getting in.
But we've also had to put this up because the heron keeps coming in.
That's another thing that will take a fish.
So, I've had to put this fence up, put the owl up to try and scare the heron away and put a metal man up to try and deter him as well.
There's a lot of work in fish.
A week later, my local pub agreed to put our trout on its menu.
So, I went down to the pond with a net, feeling weirdly conflicted.
-The only reason this fence is here -Yeah.
Is to stop the otter eating the fish, so we can sell them to rich people in the pub.
Yeah.
The whole point of this was wilding.
I then decided I didn't really care about that, so we got to work.
You throw some food in.
Put the food in first? -Yeah.
Yeah.
Then I'll be ready to pounce with the net.
Fish, fish, fish, fish.
You can't call them.
They're not like dogs.
Well, I do normally.
Right.
You can see where my net's gonna go in? -Yeah.
-That's where you've got to chuck it.
I need to get them food first.
Fish, fish.
No.
Fish, please, please.
-Will you just put it where the net is? -Okay, fine.
There.
- Thank you.
- See, they know you're there.
They don't They're not Stephen Hawking.
Shit! - Ready? - No.
Steady and go.
Dear, I think I've got some.
Well done.
My God! Yeah, I've got like Quickly, in the bucket, before they do dying.
Eight.
Thanks to my accuracy with the fish food, Lisa had landed a good catch.
That's awesome.
My God, they just look delicious.
Now we've got to get them to the pub.
Come on, because it's lunchtime in a minute.
Okay.
They've got to go in there and then, hilariously, the law of England says they have to be oxygenated.
So, I have to have an oxygen tank to keep the water oxygenated for the, what is it, six-minute journey, seven-minute journey to the pub where they're going to be killed.
Right.
Very steep.
Sorry about this, fishes.
Come on, car.
You know you can do it.
You know you want to do it.
Delivered fish before, of course, in, um, Mozambique.
That went well.
All right, it's heavy.
Vincent, look what I've got.
Wow! Just caught them a minute ago.
- Trout.
- Baby trout? Well, you say that.
Succulent.
That's the one.
That's got the You can just turn him over.
That's where the heron's beak nearly got him, so he's a lucky fish.
Not for long, not for long.
And they're two quid each.
-Let's get them inside then.
All right.
-All right, you do that.
- Yeah.
- All right, chaps.
Bye, fish.
Yeah, take care.
As June ended, my new farm projects were starting to tick over quite nicely.
- Hello.
How are you? - Hello.
I'm good.
You? Good, good.
Fine, thanks.
Super.
I've got some bags here.
Thanks to a brief respite from lockdown, more people were visiting the farm shop.
It's really good to be finally open.
And the pub had more customers for our trout.
However, these ventures were all sideshows compared to the main event.
The engine room of the farm.
The crops.
Which had been in the ground now for eight months.
For most of that time, nature had been a vindictive bastard.
But somehow, the barley wasn't all completely ruined.
Actually, it looks okay.
It looks pretty good.
Given the year it's had, you know, it was late drilled.
- Very late.
- Really wet.
Very wet.
Really dry.
Then it was very hot.
And actually, you know, it's a perfectly good crop of barley.
Charlie then announced that harvesting was imminent.
Probably four or five, five or six days away.
-There's a bit of green on the stem.
Really? Yeah.
This is the worst bit.
The middle.
The rest of it is pretty ready.
- Really? - Yeah.
We then moved onto the next crop.
So, this is oil seed rape, as you well know.
Yes.
And these are the oil seed.
They come out of the pods and they should be nice and black all over.
It's a few days.
It's probably a good ten days away yet.
- Ten days? - Ten days.
- And then we can harvest it? - Then we can harvest it.
Excellent.
So, is there anything else left to do with this? Kill it, to make sure it's dead.
I'm sorry? Well, I know it sounds a little bizarre.
The rape is dying naturally and the top is ready, but the bottom is still very much alive.
But you're saying you want to kill off the living bit of the oil seed rape? -The living bit of the oil seed rape.
-Why? Because it will, it just makes it easier to cut the crop.
So, what does a combine do? It comes on, cuts it there.
It cuts that, so that'll, you know, the knife.
Right, which could do that.
Or do you want it Is it easier when it's dead? -It's easier, much easier when it's dead.
-Okay.
Much, much easier when it's dead.
And we're not killing the seeds, because the seed's encapsulated.
So we just drive a harvester through it? Yeah.
Have you got one? - No.
We're gonna rent one.
- Very good.
-So, you've got a contractor coming in? -Yep.
- A few things to be wary.
- Yeah.
Moisture.
- Moisture? - Moisture.
It needs to be between six and nine percent.
So, moisture is the main thing and the contractor will possibly want to just say, "It's only ten and a half percent, we'll come and combine," and you say "No.
" I said you say You say? - I won't be here.
- Can you imagine Can you What do you mean, you won't be here? - I'm going on holiday.
- What? Well, you'll be fine.
You don't need me by then.
You'll be fine.
- I do need you.
- You'll be fine.
Hold on a minute.
All this and then it comes to harvest I'm no use.
Like, what do you want me for? Well, how am I gonna be able to tell whether that's got three percent moisture or 17 percent? Well, you put it in your moisture meter.
Is there a moisture-o-meter for that? -Have you not got a moisture meter? -No.
God! My first harvest.
This is so much harder.
Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit! Wait, wait! Whoa! I have no idea.
Twenty lorries you should have organized.
Twenty lorries? Twenty lorries.
And it's gonna rain tonight.
You've fucked up.
And so, with the sun continuing to blaze down from a cloudless sky, I decided to begin with what I thought would be the coolest job of them all.
Seven hundred glass bottles.
Helping to set up our newly-finished water bottling plant.
This is a speed James May would call supersonic.
Like your hat.
Groovy, right? I then discovered that housing the bottling plant in a metal shipping container hadn't been my best idea.
It's too hot for words.
Okay.
Hang on.
Let me just show you how it finishes off.
48.
6 degrees at that, at head height.
- Okay, and then - 48.
6 degrees.
Okay, look, I'm gonna show you how it kinda works.
There we go.
There's two going.
The weight is a little under.
Okay, that one is perfect.
Then you take a cap, Jeremy, okay? Screw that on, keeping an eye on over yonder.
And then you go to the hot box and go like that and then you're just a quick second in here.
- Ooh, is that the labelling? - Yeah, but I haven't There's a bit of Look, there we go.
That worked.
-No, it didn't.
You've made a mess.
-I didn't.
No, it's perfect.
- It's not perfect.
- No And then I take it off.
Any more bottles? Okay, I need some more.
Okay, and then okay, that's not good.
Um, and then, sorry.
Je In your own time.
There, a bottle.
- 49.
7 degrees.
- It's really hot.
If it reaches 50 degrees, we're allowed to go on strike.
- It's hot.
- Holy shit! Finally, though, England reverted to type.
The end of the drought was all anyone in the area could talk about I think.
I don't have to hear about your one with a bigger What have I put me head into here? Well, you know, I mean, I've done Yeah.
Excellent.
All right, thanks, Gerald.
I went down the side of old Green Wood on the old electric fence.
I mean, that was, like, you know, for horses.
Okay.
So up there, the guinea pig, two of them there was and they tried to get out before I could get in the gate and I thought, "My God, they will be acting the goat.
" Yeah.
Well, not at your age now you wouldn't.
Brilliant.
All right.
We'll let you get on.
Okey-dokey.
I then headed for the farm shop where Lisa had been hard at work and finding new things to sell.
It's an actual shop.
I know.
Smell the strawberries.
Aren't they delicious? No, no, no.
Don't eat them.
- They're so good.
- Unless you want to buy them.
And cakes.
Loads of cakes.
Holy cow! It's a proper shop.
Piccalilli, I love piccalilli.
Fruity chutney.
God, we've got everything.
Yes.
The milkshakes, I've sold, and they apparently are delicious.
-So, we've got cheese, milkshake Cream.
What's in here? My word! We've had a run on the sausages.
- Sausages, bacon.
- Yeah, yeah.
Sausage rolls.
- Rump steak.
- Yep.
Burgers.
God, wait until the camp site.
-You know they're reopening on the fourth? -Yes.
Can I Can I just ask? Simple question.
You know the planning permission says everything has to come from within 30 miles? Yes.
That it has to be a local shop for local people? Yes.
Is this a Cotswold pineapple? No.
No, but I was low on stock.
- And these avocados.
- Yes.
Again, not that local.
No.
Well, they came from one of the shires.
- I'm not sure which one.
- You know, eating two of these They don't come from a shire, they come from South America.
Shire.
Eating two of these does more environmental damage than driving a Volkswagen Polo for a year.
No way! That's bad.
I'm not gonna stock avocado anymore.
So, apart from those eggs, okay, there's nothing in here that I can see which is from our farm.
Well, meet me halfway.
Give me anything.
- Grow something, make something.
- I am growing things.
Do something.
I've nothing in here from you.
At that moment, His Cheerfulness arrived.
- Hello.
- Hey, Charlie.
Charlie.
Wow! This looks absolutely fantastic.
It's good, isn't it? Well, just 'cause Lisa's done something, you like it? - No.
- That's what it is.
It looks genuinely looks smart, doesn't it? How local are the pineapples? Cotswold pineapples.
Are they really? Avocados? Cotswold.
And and what about margins? Have we We haven't really done a budget, have we? I like budget.
- You know how I like - I know.
I like to know that the bottom figure doesn't have - I'm working on about 40%.
- Okay.
It's 40% on everything? - More or less.
- Okay.
Ever the gentleman, Charlie then had a quiet word with me out of Lisa's earshot.
So, just on pricing, - with a 40% markup - Yeah.
Wholesale price of strawberries £2.
80, sold for £3.
50, 70p.
It's 25%.
That's Lisa's maths.
So we ought to just I'm not blaming I didn't know.
No, I'm just saying that they learn differently in Dublin.
Maths.
Well, we just need to check that we've got appropriate prices for everything.
Okay.
On the subject of Lisa's plea for more farm produce, there was something I could do, because my quarter of a million bees had had enough time to make some honey.
Burn, baby, burn! I'll have no biting from you today.
Here we go.
When I got stung last time I was here, my foot throbbed for four days.
I mean, really throbbed.
And then itched so violently I wanted to saw it off, my whole foot.
Here we go.
Look at all that bee juice.
Holy Mother of God, that's a lot of honey.
Excellent.
So exciting.
I've just thought.
I'm going to be driving back and all the loose bees are going to go in the car.
Yeah, not much I can do about that.
Shit! Christ! I've got one in my suit.
How the fucking hell's that happened? Argh! And it's stung me right in the arse cheeks.
This really, this is bad.
Agh! Having taken a brave pill, I stacked up the remaining trays and set off with my unwanted passengers.
I can hear them.
Listen.
How can it be legal to drive with a beehive in the back of your car? Agh, I can feel that buttock growing a third buttock.
Worst journey of my life.
Talk among yourselves.
I am just applying Wasp-Eze to my own arse crack, 'cause the crew won't do it.
I just don't believe this.
A lot of bees there.
With my third buttock now numbed, I started to sort out my bee juice.
Look at this.
Look at that.
A slab of beeswax, which could be used as furniture polish, floor polish.
Percussionists use it to make tambourines make a better sound.
It's used in accordions.
Madame Tussauds, they made all their waxwork models out of beeswax.
The wax, in the olden days, used to sell for 14 times more money than the honey did.
My next task was to extract the honey using something called a spinner.
Look at this.
The important thing here is to be gentle, so you get the honey without damaging the honeycombs.
This is all honey down in here.
All honey.
Um God, look what's happened here.
But, despite the damage Look, look, look, look, look, look! My first jar of bee juice.
The next day, with the honey all packaged up, I picked some of my vegetables.
Look at this.
Whoa! That is vivid.
And then, laden down with actual produce from my own farm, I proudly headed to the shop.
Wow! Right, so that's the first batch of honey.
I've got more coming later.
And then Wow, how did you do this? Chard? You've brought it in a bag from our closest competition.
God, I have.
It's a very fine food shop half a mile down the road.
The honey is fantastic.
How much do you want to sell it for? Well, I saw in Daylesford the other day, half that was £20.
Half that? And it was £20.
I think you can easily go - £7? - For those No, more.
- Really? - Yeah, more.
I've worked bloody hard for that.
I've been stung twice.
I'm not selling it for £7.
£10.
- £8.
50.
- They stung No.
Sorry, are we holding you up? Sorry, there's a customer.
Then the price issue got even worse.
A lady's just come in.
She said, "Well, I'll give you £6.
50 for it," and Lisa said "Fine.
" She just happened to capitalize on an argument and now she's getting that honey for £6.
50.
Yeah.
They arrived in this morning.
It's just, this isn't how Asda is run.
They don't ask the customers how much they'd like to pay.
- Yep.
- Do you take cards? We do.
Only cards now.
Yes.
Um, if you'd like Whilst I was having a sulk, Kaleb arrived in his new toy.
Look at this.
That's actually very cool and I just heard you go by earlier.
Did you? - It does make a good sound.
- It's nice, isn't it? Nice.
So, this was your styling then, the black bonnet, black roof? Yeah, black bonnet, black roof, black spoiler.
I bought the new spoiler for it.
-I had the windows tinted as well.
-Of course you did.
So, basically, when I bought it, two days after having it, driving out of Long Com at 60 miles an hour, this comes up like that, folds over that.
That bit here was bent in.
What, the roof? Yeah, the roof was about that far from my head in the cab.
- What, just from the bonnet? - From the bonnet.
Why did the bonnet catch give up? Because apparently it's a thing you've got to look out for on these.
They rust away.
And this is your first proper car, isn't it? It's my proper dream.
This is my dream car, this, ever since I was a kid.
What, you wanted a 350? My only slight concern is this is a GT car.
- A Grand Tourer.
- Yeah.
A long-distance car.
But since you never go further than three miles from where we're standing now Yeah.
-Where's the furthest you've been in it? -Um, Banbury.
- Ooh, 12 miles.
- Twelve miles.
That's it.
What, and then you got scared? Then come home.
Also.
Are you wearing a hairband? Yeah.
A hairband to keep my hair out of my face.
Is that because - you haven't had a haircut for - Yeah, for ages.
On the 27th, though, I'm getting it permed.
You're going to drive around in this car with a perm? Yep.
- Yeah! - Watch out, Chippy! After Vidal Sassoon had left, I went into the woods to see my wasabi plants, which I'd decided were now ready to be turned into cash.
Sadly, though, the recent heatwave had taken its toll.
Um, as you can see, everything I've planted at this end of the bed has not just died, but totally disappeared.
It's got 27 plants, which means 73 have died.
This end, where there's still quite a lot of water coming through, things aren't too bad, though.
Yes! Look at him.
Hello, look at the size of him! The good thing is, all the restaurants recently re-opened and the chancellor is even paying people to go and eat in them, so I can get that down to London, get it into some Japanese restaurant and they'll be amazed.
Because I was so busy, obviously I couldn't spare the time to go to London.
But, luckily, I knew just the man for the job.
He'd only been to the capital once, on a school art trip, and he'd been so scared he hadn't dared get off the coach.
But he's all grown up now and, at the very least, I figured the trip would give him an opportunity to drive his new car.
But no.
A few things you're gonna need to know.
Have you got your ULEV? What's that? Ultra-low emission.
That diesel engine was made before 2015, yeah? Yeah.
So, you're gonna need to pay that congestion charge.
You're gonna need at least 15 apps for your parking, for all the different companies.
And every single thing you can do in the countryside you can't do in London.
If you get stabbed, right, they won't have that on CCTV.
You make a cheeky left, they will.
How the fuck do I pay an ingestion charge and stuff like that? - What is that about? - You make a call.
I can't just Why can't I But don't make a call while you're driving.
Why would you do that, then? Or you can do it on an app, and the ULEV as well.
Don't forget that.
It's about 28 quid to drive into London in this.
Well, it's free round here.
Yes, I know everything's free around here.
Every single thing you can do around here, everything, you can't do in London.
I think we've got the jobs a little bit wrong today.
Go to London, sell wasabi.
Don't take less than £300 and I'll see you back here tonight.
- £300 per kg? - Yeah.
- All right.
- It's valuable.
See you tonight.
Yeah.
He's genuinely nervous.
In 100 yards, turn left onto Church Road.
This route avoids congestion on A40 in London.
You are on the fastest route.
You will arrive at 9:29 a.
m.
What? There ain't congest Congestion.
I'm in Chadlington.
One mile.
One mile for what? All right, here we go.
I am officially leaving Chadlington.
My palms are really sweaty.
Like, really sweaty.
Going on the motorway? Right, here we go.
-Continue on the M40 for 27 miles.
M40 for 27 miles? Jeez! If Kaleb thought things were bad for him, they were worse for me as this is the time of year when farmers apply for their grants.
This meant I had to tell the government exactly what I was growing.
That meant paperwork.
I've been looking forward to today, 'cause I love form-filling.
Yeah, yeah, it's quite a useful few hours, because, um Hours? - Yeah.
- So, this form Yeah.
Which is hundreds of pages long It's 22 pages long.
I've got better things to do with my time than this.
- But it's We've got - How much do they pay? Because whatever it is, I'd rather pay it myself than fill in a form.
Really? - 360 hectares you have - Yeah.
And they'll pay you £220.
So that's £82,000.
Right, I'll fill in the form.
So, the first thing we'll need is a farm map.
So, there's the map.
And there are certain codes.
So, you see that that there says So that's wheat.
Why is it wheat? Because that's the code for wheat, Jeremy.
- What's AC17? - Maize.
- What's PG01? - Permanent grass.
- What's WO25? - Those are woodlands.
Have you ever flown into a really, sort of, let's say developing world country and they give you a massively complicated immigration form? - Burma, for example.
- No.
And you know when you fill this in, which takes an hour or Cambodia they put it in the bin.
That's what going We are This is developing world nonsense, this is.
So Right, so there's how many fields on the farm? I've forgotten.
There's about 42.
So, there's Dead Man.
- Yeah.
- So - So, we have to go - That's got wheat in it.
Yes, but it's got last year's crop in it at the moment, which was oil seed rape.
So, we have to go through this.
But it's got wheat in it.
Yes, but as far as the government are concerned Well, it hasn't.
It's got I know it's got wheat in it.
I've seen it.
They don't know that yet.
You have to be accurate, Jeremy, about Meanwhile, 70 miles away, Sir Ranulph had finally arrived in the center of a COVID-quiet London.
Not that he saw it that way.
Where am I? In there, in here? What is going on? In 100 yards, use the second from the left lane to turn left onto Piccadilly.
Then use the second from the left lane to turn slightly right onto Duke of Wellington Place.
What? No, not a chance in hell.
I'm going straight on.
At the roundabout turn left.
Turn left onto Constitution Hill.
-Take the first left on the roundabout.
I don't understand.
Don't keep telling me to turn left! -Turn right into Grosvenor Place.
What are you beeping me at? Dickhead! Hello.
Just cut right in front of me, why don't you? From the right lane, turn slightly right onto Piccadilly, then use the left two lanes to turn left to stay on Piccadilly.
What? No, no, no, no.
I need to go there.
Sorry, friend.
Congestion charge.
Jesus! Ultra-low.
Turn left onto Old Park Lane.
Great.
No left turning.
You're fucking having me on! I'm meant to go left down there.
I've got to go left here.
I am looking for a restaurant called Nero.
Nero, Naro, Nero, Noro, Naro.
Eventually, Kaleb found the restaurant he was looking for.
All right, where do I park? Come on, park.
Pay by phone.
Sorry.
We're unable to park you in this location as its restrictions do not allow your vehicle type.
Please look for alternative parking locations nearby.
Thank you for calling Westminster's pay-to-park service.
To find out more available ways to pay, change your card or vehicle details What is going on? Or download VAT receipts.
Enter your card's expiry date exactly as printed on the front of the card.
To find out more about alternative ways to pay, change your card or vehicle details or Shut up.
Right.
That's that done.
Ten quid just to park here for an hour.
Hello.
What are you doing? Trying to open the door.
Why? I haven't got any gloves and it's London.
How are you doing? Are you all right? I've got some wasabi for you - La, la, la, la, la.
- Off the farm.
Yep.
So Jesus! Have you tried your wasabi? - To eat? - Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Nice.
I like it.
I didn't have it on any fish, mind.
I had it on, like, a ready salted crisp.
Yeah.
I'm more like a roast dinner chap, you know? A proper roast dinner.
Well, we try, yeah, your wasabi.
Nice, like, creamy.
I can smell.
Nice one, nice one.
Very good, very good.
And do you want to buy the wasabi? Are you interested in Not too much.
Not too much.
If you look at it, though, it's top-quality Chadlington wasabi, that.
Quality good, right.
But the wastage, there's so much wastage because of the size.
Yeah.
So, we need to have, like, a bigger size, otherwise, like, too much.
- Too much waste? - Yeah.
Right.
Okey-dokey.
-Well, thank you very much for everything.
-Thank you very much.
-I'll try my best to grow a bigger one.
-Good stuff.
No! Sixty-five quid? Full charge 130 quid? With Kaleb losing the profits he hadn't made, I was busy regretting planting so many different vegetables.
Broad beans, beetroots, chard, peas, swede, kohlrabi, turnip, cabbage, leeks, pak choi, rhubarb, broccoli, cauliflower, kale and marrow.
Yeah.
Now, the government has a code, obviously, for all of those.
- Yeah.
- Broad beans has got a code? Broad beans has a code.
- I have to look those codes up.
- Yeah, look them up.
And then tell them exactly how much.
What do they want it, in centimeters? - Square meters will be fine.
- Square meters.
You've got to do it to four decimal places.
If you see, we've got four decimal places.
They want it to with They want it that tight? Yeah, it's very accurate now.
Can't you just write vegetables? Can we guess? There isn't just You could, but then if you're wrong, they might implement a penalty, and, you know, they have got eyes in the sky now, so, you know, there's satellite images.
Are you telling me the British government is photographing my farm from space to see what I'm growing and doing with it? Absolutely.
Desperate to make some money from the trip, Sir Ranulph, aided by his chatty satnav Harley Street, then turn left onto was now looking for the next restaurant.
Turn left onto Curzon Street, then turn Head southeast on Stanhope Row towards Shepherd Street, then turn right onto Hertford Street.
My God! Turn left onto The Mall.
Look at that.
Is that where the Queen lives, in there? At the next restaurant What have you got to offer? This is the wasabi that's grown on the farm in Chadlington.
-Do you know where Chadlington is? - Chipping Norton? - No.
Kaleb was in full salesman mode.
I've been told, come away from my boss, £300 a kg.
£300 a kg? You're dreaming, mate.
Let's have a look here and see what you've actually managed to produce? Yeah, let's have a look.
-So, there you go.
204 grams.
Really, if you're gonna clean it down you've probably got more like 150 grams, let's be honest.
Yeah, all right.
150 grams.
What's that? A tenner? I'll give you ten quid for it, mate.
That's a good deal.
I reckon we do a deal.
Go £15.
- I'll give you ten, mate.
- Twelve.
Ten it is.
Okay, deal.
It just cost me £10 to park.
There you go.
You pay your parking for free.
In 200 yards, turn left onto Lancaster Place.
A301.
We are off to the Shard now.
Something called the Shard.
I want to get in there, get it sold, get out of there, go home.
I've had enough.
This is probably a good time to reveal that the only thing Kaleb hates more than cities is heights.
Don't tell me that's the Shard.
You are winding me up.
Jesus! Jesus, Jesus, Jesus! Don't look at the levels, don't look at the levels, don't look at the levels.
32nd floor.
That's horrible.
Doors open.
Still, at least the trip was completely pointless.
£25, 100 grams.
- Let me digest that and I'll - Yeah? Yeah, I'll give you a call.
-You're sure you don't want to buy it now? -Unfortunately, not now, no.
Shit! Okey-dokey.
Cheers.
Mum.
Hello.
My signal is bad.
I'm up the Shard.
Ever heard of it? It's like a big building in London.
It's not very good.
It's like 1,000 feet up in the air.
Look, I've got to go, all right? - Who was that, Kaleb? - That was my mum.
She was worried about me.
She's seen me on the family map thing and said, "Why are you in London?" I'm like, "I'm up the Shard.
" She goes, "Where?" "The Shard in London.
" I must admit, it's quite a nice view, actually.
It would be better if there was, like, a farm, fields, hills.
- Are you all right? - No, not really.
Today I have made nothing.
After Kaleb's failure to sell the wasabi in London, we put it in the farm shop where it rotted.
And that wasn't the end of the bad news.
God above! Because Lisa's definition of local produce had come to the attention of the authorities.
I've had an annoying email from the council which says that, um, the stuff we sell in the farm shop has to be from a producer based solely within West Oxfordshire's district boundaries and they're saying that some of the pâté and cheese and what-have-you is from Gloucestershire.
I mean, there's a pandemic going on.
Millions of people are unemployed.
We have a little business that now has five people on the payroll, we're supporting local farms and local businesses and now we have to have an enforcement case opened on us.
I mean, God, give me strength! Fortunately, I had already had a genius idea for making the produce very local.
All right.
I put the bee honeycomb stuff.
I'd decided to turn my spare beeswax into scented candles.
Taking my inspiration for the scent from a Hollywood A-lister.
What do you think of that? And not just lavender.
A spring onion.
Just a hint of broad bean.
And there we are.
Let that set.
At the shop, Lisa was delighted with the results.
You cannot label that "This smells like my bollocks.
" You just can't.
Gwyneth Paltrow has made a fortune from her candles which smell like her vagina.
Do you think these will sell more because it smells like your bollocks? I've also Look, "These beeswax scented candles were handmade by Jeremy Clarkson.
You'd never know it, but it's true," and I've signed it to prove I made them.
Meanwhile, down at the trout pond, Kaleb, now safely back in his natural habitat, was busy protecting another source of revenue.
I am putting a fence up.
An electric fence up.
We've seen a couple of dead fish on the side.
Poor fishy.
It's got some puncture wounds on it.
So, Jeremy put a trap camera down here to see what was causing the fish to die.
Turned out there was an otter.
So, I'm putting up an electric fence around the outside of the pond where the fish are, to try and stop that otter getting in.
But we've also had to put this up because the heron keeps coming in.
That's another thing that will take a fish.
So, I've had to put this fence up, put the owl up to try and scare the heron away and put a metal man up to try and deter him as well.
There's a lot of work in fish.
A week later, my local pub agreed to put our trout on its menu.
So, I went down to the pond with a net, feeling weirdly conflicted.
-The only reason this fence is here -Yeah.
Is to stop the otter eating the fish, so we can sell them to rich people in the pub.
Yeah.
The whole point of this was wilding.
I then decided I didn't really care about that, so we got to work.
You throw some food in.
Put the food in first? -Yeah.
Yeah.
Then I'll be ready to pounce with the net.
Fish, fish, fish, fish.
You can't call them.
They're not like dogs.
Well, I do normally.
Right.
You can see where my net's gonna go in? -Yeah.
-That's where you've got to chuck it.
I need to get them food first.
Fish, fish.
No.
Fish, please, please.
-Will you just put it where the net is? -Okay, fine.
There.
- Thank you.
- See, they know you're there.
They don't They're not Stephen Hawking.
Shit! - Ready? - No.
Steady and go.
Dear, I think I've got some.
Well done.
My God! Yeah, I've got like Quickly, in the bucket, before they do dying.
Eight.
Thanks to my accuracy with the fish food, Lisa had landed a good catch.
That's awesome.
My God, they just look delicious.
Now we've got to get them to the pub.
Come on, because it's lunchtime in a minute.
Okay.
They've got to go in there and then, hilariously, the law of England says they have to be oxygenated.
So, I have to have an oxygen tank to keep the water oxygenated for the, what is it, six-minute journey, seven-minute journey to the pub where they're going to be killed.
Right.
Very steep.
Sorry about this, fishes.
Come on, car.
You know you can do it.
You know you want to do it.
Delivered fish before, of course, in, um, Mozambique.
That went well.
All right, it's heavy.
Vincent, look what I've got.
Wow! Just caught them a minute ago.
- Trout.
- Baby trout? Well, you say that.
Succulent.
That's the one.
That's got the You can just turn him over.
That's where the heron's beak nearly got him, so he's a lucky fish.
Not for long, not for long.
And they're two quid each.
-Let's get them inside then.
All right.
-All right, you do that.
- Yeah.
- All right, chaps.
Bye, fish.
Yeah, take care.
As June ended, my new farm projects were starting to tick over quite nicely.
- Hello.
How are you? - Hello.
I'm good.
You? Good, good.
Fine, thanks.
Super.
I've got some bags here.
Thanks to a brief respite from lockdown, more people were visiting the farm shop.
It's really good to be finally open.
And the pub had more customers for our trout.
However, these ventures were all sideshows compared to the main event.
The engine room of the farm.
The crops.
Which had been in the ground now for eight months.
For most of that time, nature had been a vindictive bastard.
But somehow, the barley wasn't all completely ruined.
Actually, it looks okay.
It looks pretty good.
Given the year it's had, you know, it was late drilled.
- Very late.
- Really wet.
Very wet.
Really dry.
Then it was very hot.
And actually, you know, it's a perfectly good crop of barley.
Charlie then announced that harvesting was imminent.
Probably four or five, five or six days away.
-There's a bit of green on the stem.
Really? Yeah.
This is the worst bit.
The middle.
The rest of it is pretty ready.
- Really? - Yeah.
We then moved onto the next crop.
So, this is oil seed rape, as you well know.
Yes.
And these are the oil seed.
They come out of the pods and they should be nice and black all over.
It's a few days.
It's probably a good ten days away yet.
- Ten days? - Ten days.
- And then we can harvest it? - Then we can harvest it.
Excellent.
So, is there anything else left to do with this? Kill it, to make sure it's dead.
I'm sorry? Well, I know it sounds a little bizarre.
The rape is dying naturally and the top is ready, but the bottom is still very much alive.
But you're saying you want to kill off the living bit of the oil seed rape? -The living bit of the oil seed rape.
-Why? Because it will, it just makes it easier to cut the crop.
So, what does a combine do? It comes on, cuts it there.
It cuts that, so that'll, you know, the knife.
Right, which could do that.
Or do you want it Is it easier when it's dead? -It's easier, much easier when it's dead.
-Okay.
Much, much easier when it's dead.
And we're not killing the seeds, because the seed's encapsulated.
So we just drive a harvester through it? Yeah.
Have you got one? - No.
We're gonna rent one.
- Very good.
-So, you've got a contractor coming in? -Yep.
- A few things to be wary.
- Yeah.
Moisture.
- Moisture? - Moisture.
It needs to be between six and nine percent.
So, moisture is the main thing and the contractor will possibly want to just say, "It's only ten and a half percent, we'll come and combine," and you say "No.
" I said you say You say? - I won't be here.
- Can you imagine Can you What do you mean, you won't be here? - I'm going on holiday.
- What? Well, you'll be fine.
You don't need me by then.
You'll be fine.
- I do need you.
- You'll be fine.
Hold on a minute.
All this and then it comes to harvest I'm no use.
Like, what do you want me for? Well, how am I gonna be able to tell whether that's got three percent moisture or 17 percent? Well, you put it in your moisture meter.
Is there a moisture-o-meter for that? -Have you not got a moisture meter? -No.
God! My first harvest.
This is so much harder.
Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit! Wait, wait! Whoa! I have no idea.
Twenty lorries you should have organized.
Twenty lorries? Twenty lorries.
And it's gonna rain tonight.
You've fucked up.