[theme music playing]
[birds chirping]
[fly buzzing]
[tense music]
[insects buzzing]
[water splashing and wind whistling]
[cicadas buzzing]
[engine whirring]
[Jeremy] Driest February ever.
- Wettest March for 40 years. - [Kaleb] Yeah.
[rain splashing]
Then it didn't rain at all but was cold in May.
Then it went to the hottest June ever.
[cicadas buzzing]
- Since then, it's been... - [Kaleb] The wettest July.
[rain splashing]
- The wettest July and the coldest. - [Kaleb] Yeah.
[soft music]
[Jeremy] Given that the weather had done the exact opposite
of what we needed all year long,
we were praying for an old-fashioned autumn
with lots of warm sunshine.
But no.
The crucial harvesting month was also refusing to play ball.
Today was meant to be sunny. Look at it.
[ominous music]
[Jeremy] And now Kaleb had killed the crops off
to ready them for the combine,
the clock was ticking.
[tense music]
The longer they sat in the field too wet to harvest,
the more they would deteriorate.
We need under 15.
[Kaleb] 18.4.
Shit.
[Charlie blows]
[Charlie] We're probably okay at nine.
18.3.
[Jeremy] It has to be less than nine.
17.5. Bollocks.
Hi. Have you done a moisture test?
[Charlie] I can feel it's wet already.
18.6.
This year's an absolute pig. It just won't dry at all.
- What is it? - [Kaleb] 17%.
I think I've broken a record of how many times I can moisture test a field.
Moisture test, moisture test, then moisture test again.
Then do another moisture test.
Get to the end of the day and go, no, it's not gonna go today.
[Jeremy] To add to the pressure,
Andy Cato was now worried about how well
his wild-farmed wheat field would perform...
- [Andy] Morning. - [Jeremy] How are you?
[Jeremy] Because he feared he'd been too conservative
with the nitrogen fertiliser.
[Andy] I don't think we've got it quite right here.
We've ended up using an absolutely miniscule amount of nitrogen here,
about 11 kilos.
How much have you put on that field over there?
- No idea. - A couple of hundred maybe?
- Kaleb knows. - Yeah.
So a couple of hundred kilos on that, and 11...
I don't know, but I guess it'd be somewhere around there.
[Andy] But I think we haven't quite got the balance quite right in this field.
We've undercooked it a bit.
It's just a little bit lacking in energy.
[soft music]
[Jeremy] After sitting on our hands for day after frustrating day,
conditions did finally start to improve.
It sounds better.
[machine grinding]
[Kaleb] Oats...
We need under 15%.
15% now!
So by the time Simon gets here, that'll be fit to go.
[Jeremy] As usual, Charlie had gone on holiday for the harvest.
This meant Kaleb was fully in charge.
So, while we waited for the combine to arrive,
he summoned me to his office
for what he said was an important meeting.
[Kaleb] Hey-up.
So this is...
[Kaleb] Welcome to my office!
Well, how long have you had this?
[Kaleb] Well, since you made me farm manager.
- [Jeremy] Well, that's months ago. - [Kaleb] I know!
I just cleared a bit of space and...
Who's done your interior decoration? Nicky Haslam, is it?
No, me!
- [Jeremy scoffs] - It's a work's office.
- [chuckling] It's not an office. - It's good!
I found this table out the old shed at the back there.
And this one here is actually just like a dresser with some...
The electric's not the best in here.
It's the shittest office I've ever been in.
- It's not! It's dry. - You've got a washing machine, though.
Yeah, and a tumble dryer.
[Kaleb] Anyway, more importantly.
- Charlie's in the U.S. of A. - I know.
Harvest is around the corner, so obviously he's gone away.
- [Kaleb] Exactly. So he's gone away. - Yeah.
But as farm manager now,
it makes me responsible for the health and safety on this farm.
Oh, God...
Ten minutes. That's all it's gonna take. I've gotta go through this folder.
- What is it? - You can read it if you want.
Read all the risk assessments that I've done.
- Have you done risk assessments? - [Kaleb] Yeah.
I had to. It's on my head.
If you injure yourself now, do you know whose fault it is?
Mine. I go to prison.
And this face isn't for prison.
The other day we were carting stone for the car park, yes?
[Jeremy] Yeah.
What happened when you pulled up to the drive off the car?
- Oh, the trailer came up. - [Kaleb] Yeah.
- That's quite dangerous, though. - [Jeremy] Why is it dangerous?
- [Kaleb] The overhead power cables... - There aren't any.
Okay, there isn't any, but if there was...
Well, there isn't.
[Kaleb] You could have taken them out and killed yourself or somebody else.
But there isn't.
Do you know the correct way to get out of a tractor if you've hit a power cable?
- No. - [Kaleb] The correct way
to get out of a tractor if you've touched a power cable,
because it will shoot through your tractor,
is to bunny hop.
Open the door, top step, and just jump
as far as you can away from it.
- I can't bunny hop. - [Kaleb] You'd probably break your leg.
And my knees are not up to any...
[Jeremy] I'll sit in it
because the rubber tyres will insulate me.
But you can't ring me then because there's no signal.
Why not?
Because the electricity will knock out your signal.
People will miss me after a while.
- No, I wouldn't. - [Jeremy chuckles]
Anyway. Have you got What3Words on your phone?
- [Jeremy] Yeah. - OK.
Just in case of an accident, you can tell me what specific three words
and I know where you are.
I don't understand What3Words. I thought you had to choose the words.
[Kaleb] No.
It said, "You choose three words for wherever you are."
But I thought if I send that to you,
how do you know what three words I've chosen?
I'm gonna warm this one up.
[Jeremy laughs]
I genuinely... I promise!
So, basically...
Honestly. I've got it on the phone and it said...
- Whatever... Walnut, toffee, cat. - Yeah.
[Jeremy] Well, I don't want those words.
- Somebody else has chosen them. - [Kaleb] Yes.
Well, I don't like that.
I write newspaper columns.
Nobody chooses the words for them. I choose the words.
Yeah, so the person who wrote this What3Word programme
chose the words for each place.
- [Jeremy] Well, I've got it anyway. - Good.
All right. At random.
"No smoking when refuelling"?
- [Kaleb] No. - I never knew that.
I always used to light up when I was filling up the car.
Always.
I wish you did.
[upbeat music]
[Jeremy] A couple of hours later,
Kaleb met up with Simon and his combine
to harvest the oats he'd planted in the fields
where the rape had failed.
[Kaleb on radio] Have you got a walkie-talkie, Simon?
[Simon on radio] Yeah, I've got it.
[Jeremy] And I suspect he was hoping to get it all done
without my help.
I think he's hoping I won't find him but I shall.
Then I shall offer my assistance.
And he will be happy.
[Jeremy over loudspeaker] Good news! I'm here to help.
[Kaleb sighing] Oh no...
[Kaleb on radio] You can have this trailer, I'll have the other one.
[Jeremy] The trailer Kaleb wanted me to use
was only half full.
So I had to hook it up and then carry on filling it.
[Jeremy] Genuinely,
I still don't know how to hook a trailer up.
Up. Go up.
- [Jeremy] Is that right? - [Kaleb] No.
Use your joystick.
Unlock it on the little button, the hydraulics...
You need the hydraulics.
Use that little...
Is it locked or not?
- I don't bloody know. - Is it locked on the little button?
What?
Are we ready?
Roll forward a little bit more.
What? Backwards?
You've gotta go forward a little tiny bit. Whoa!
How can they refuel a fighter jet
in mid-air at 30,000 feet
and yet somehow, farmers have not yet invented
- an easier way... - No, you rolled forward again.
I had to roll forwards!
- [Jeremy] Whoa. Shit. - Yeah!
Now we're cooking!
Only took fucking three hours.
Right. There you go.
Do you wanna try your hydraulics before we go?
[Jeremy] How do I try hydraulics?
- [Kaleb] Unlock the hydraulics. - I have unlocked it.
I think.
[button clicking]
Go down.
No, no, no. Go down.
[buttons clicking]
[machine whirring]
[Kaleb screams]
[Kaleb] Oh, you fucking...
[button clicking]
I honestly... I can't. I can't stand him.
[Simon] Give him a shovel and some bags. That's what did with the students.
Make them shovel it up again.
[both] No!
Fucking hell.
Right. That is up, there.
[Kaleb shouting] No, stop!
- [button clicking] - [Jeremy sighs] Shit.
Can we have an agreement...
From now on then, you plug it in.
When you plug those hoses in, can they always be the same?
Yes. That's what I always do. But your tractor's shit, for one.
You're incapable of driving it, for two.
It's not me.
Well, it is. Every time you jump in it, you press the wrong one.
That's because every time I get in it,
each button does a different thing. You would agree with that.
Yeah, because it's a shit tractor.
[engine whirring]
[Jeremy] Luckily, my godson was doing work experience on the farm that week,
so he got to experience the joy
of shovelling up my spilled oats...
[Jeremy] Here we go.
Coming in.
[Jeremy] While I headed over to Simon to take the rest of his load.
Now, let's not muck it up, Jeremy. Let's not muck it up.
[tense music]
[Kaleb] He's nervous now. He's all over the place.
[Kaleb on radio] Go over, left a little bit. Go left! Go left!
[Kaleb] All of that just went over. Look how much...
[Kaleb on radio] You've just spilt loads.
[Jeremy] What?
[Jeremy on radio] What have I done wrong now?
[Kaleb] You've just spilt loads and loads over the left-hand side.
You were too close.
Oh, I don't understand. I don't understand anything.
[upbeat music]
[tractor honking]
[Jeremy] When it was time to take my next load,
Simon made a rather humiliating decision.
[Jeremy] Erm, I'm loading while stationary.
I know you can see it at home and you're laughing at me,
but the important thing is:
Kaleb's not here to see it.
[music continues]
[Jeremy] But even though I'd lost whatever harvesting skills I'd once had,
we did manage, that day, to get both fields of oats harvested
and in the shed.
Eat your heart out Mac Scotland.
We can have some Mac Chipping Norton porridge.
[upbeat music]
[Jeremy] However, we couldn't savour the normal joy of harvesting
because once again, the weather reared its ugly head.
So now we'll go into the Met Office.
They're saying 10 o'clock tonight rain.
Er, mine's saying 9 o'clock.
Have you got this particular app of doom?
Is that the Norwegian?
- [Jeremy] Which one's that one? - [Andy] Rain today.
I've just been looking at the BBC Met Office.
That Norwegian one is very good.
- Yeah. - They're all saying now 10 o'clock.
- 10 o'clock? - 10 o'clock.
Holy shit. Look at that.
That is coming.
And it's going to get medieval on our bottoms.
[Jeremy] With every app saying wind and rain was on the way,
Kaleb made a late-afternoon decision.
I think we finish this field off, because we're here anyway...
You're the farm manager.
And then we move down to the Wildfarmed.
Yeah. OK. Well, that'll keep Andy happy.
[Kaleb] Yes. And get that done.
I think the problem that Andy's worrying about, yeah?
Our wheat now will be fine against the weather.
It'll take a little bit of battering before it loses the milling quality.
Yeah. You mean before you can make it...
Well, you can make it into bread, not cow food.
Exactly. Or chicken food.
The problem I think he's worried about is that that's such an old variety
that he's worried about it losing the milling quality.
- Which it might in bad weather. - [Kaleb] Yes.
[Jeremy] Andy had predicted that because he'd been too cautious
with the fertiliser,
his field wouldn't produce a massive yield.
And he wasn't wrong.
[Jeremy] I mean, a third of the field
and it's less than half the trailer full.
Well, we're easily gonna get this field done.
Yeah.
It's pretty low, isn't it?
[Kaleb] Is it worth doing?
[Jeremy] Yeah. You're just being awkward.
You've been awkward all year about somebody stealing your field.
Well, you shouldn't have let someone else drill my field.
You're always going to be negative so I'm not gonna listen to you.
Because I look after fellow Doncastrians.
Doncastrians?
- That's what we're called. - Dear Lord!
- He's from Donny, I'm from Donny. - I bet you're in some sort of cult!
Doncaster has given the world...
Kevin Keegan, Diana Rigg,
and now we're saving farming.
I'm not being horrible, but I have no idea what you're on about.
- Never heard of Kevin Keegan? - No!
Was he a Prime Minister?
- No, he was captain footballer. - [Kaleb] Oh!
- Ah... - [Jeremy sighs]
[soft music]
[Jeremy] Working without a break into the night,
we got Andy's wheat in just before the rain came.
[pitter-patter of the rain]
And the next day, this new-age mix of wheat and beans
went off to be milled.
[soft music continues]
This meant we could turn our attention to the problem child...
the oilseed rape.
[Jeremy] Now, let's just remind ourselves...
there's a saying which says if you haven't got your rape planted
by the time of the Moreton Show,
which is a farming show near here,
which is early September, don't plant it because you're too late.
We didn't get our rape in by the Moreton Show.
We advised Kaleb not to plant rape.
He went ahead and planted it anyway.
Most of it failed.
This field didn't fail.
We're waiting to see what the yield is.
How many fields have we got? Have we got two fields of it, haven't we?
We normally put about 100 hectares in, yeah?
Of oilseed rape.
And this year we've got 20.
Yeah. How much failed?
- Only one field. 80 hectares. - No, two fields failed.
- No, one field's failed. - Oh.
Say sorry.
I'm sorry you planted the wrong crop.
No, say sorry.
Sorry your mistake was bigger than it was.
Be nice for one minute.
- [Jeremy] You've done a very good job. - Thank you.
[Kaleb chuckling]
There we go.
- [Jeremy] What do we want it to be? - [Kaleb] Underneath nine.
Twelve!
I reckon another two hours and we'll be going.
[Jeremy] So, a couple of hours later,
we came back to do another moisture test.
- [Jeremy] What was it this morning? - It was 12%.
- [Jeremy] We need it to be less than 9. - Yes.
I don't remember very much from the years I've been farming
but the one thing I do remember, and this was on television,
is Charlie said to me
that a contractor, Kaleb or Simon, will always say,
"Oh it's fine, don't worry about the moisture."
And Charlie said, "Never ever let them harvest it
"if it's too wet.
"Never ever let them do that."
So if it's over 9, I mustn't let him combine it.
[Kaleb] What is it?
So it's 10. So it's still too wet.
You can make the decision now because you just say "I'm a contractor".
So, what are we gonna do?
Do you want me to get this off today at 10%,
take a little bit of the drying charge?
Or wait until the end of the week when our wheat's ready?
If we lose the Hagberg on the wheat, we're gonna lose the milling quality.
The last thing we want is to harvest this when our wheat's ready.
So you make the call. Go for it.
You'll go, "You're just a contractor. Nah, nah, nah."
Go on. Call it.
Charlie said don't harvest...
[Kaleb] Yeah, I know what Charlie said. But this is your decision now.
Call it. By the time we get going...
I can't call it when you keep talking.
[Kaleb] All right. Go on then. I'll shut up.
[Kaleb in mocking tone] "I'm just a contractor."
So there's probably 5 or 6 hours
- in total to get the rape in. - [Kaleb] Yeah.
And the wheat...
[Kaleb] It's gonna be ready on Wednesday afternoon.
I guarantee that wheat will be fit Wednesday afternoon.
Make the call.
I cannot believe Charlie's gone on holiday.
Can you please just make the decision?
- I can't make a decision... - I'm doing it for you then. We're going.
- [Kaleb] Ready? - Charlie told me not to do this.
I'm calling Simon. We're calling it.
[upbeat music]
[engine whirring]
[Jeremy] When Simon arrived, I went off to do mushroom business
leaving Kaleb waiting anxiously to find out
whether his rape gamble had paid off.
[Kaleb on radio] Simon, do you copy?
[Simon on radio] Yeah, I've got you.
[Kaleb on radio] Are you getting on well?
Erm, yeah. Well, yes.
[Simon on radio] We're only a quarter full.
Quarter full?
At the moment it's saying a quarter of a tonne to the hectare.
Shitting hell.
[Simon on radio] A lot of these plants just haven't got any pods on at all.
That's the trouble with rape: it's a volatile crop.
[upbeat music]
[Jeremy] I returned when they were on the second and final field of rape.
[Jeremy] How was, how was, er...
- [Kaleb] That was shockingly bad. - How bad?
[Kaleb] Really bad.
No, what was the yield?
Oh, like, averaged on 300 kg a hectare.
You're joking?
Has that trailer got the first field in it?
Yeah. I wouldn't go and have a look if I was you.
Don't do it to yourself, honestly.
- [Kaleb] See what I mean? - [Jeremy] Yeah. 25 acres?
- [Kaleb] Yeah. - [Jeremy] Shit.
[Jeremy] Once again,
it was the weather that had dealt the killer blow.
[Kaleb] That's a rape stalk. Where's all the pods gone?
[Jeremy] Oh shit. There's no pods at all.
And look. If you look this way, behind you.
Can you see it? It's a little bit thinner and it's going like that in the wind.
It's got so brittle and that storm and the rain come in,
it's knocking out the rapeseed that we want.
Honestly...
I mean, I am pissed off, you are pissed off.
I mean, I can see you're pissed off.
[Kaleb] I'm just fed up.
[Jeremy] I mean, I'd normally taunt you
and say you were told not to plant rape.
[Kaleb] I'm not in the mood.
[Jeremy] I mean, you know...
Cheer up.
- [Kaleb] Oh, I've just had enough. - What?
[Kaleb] Well, you put all that time and effort in, and money.
I know it's not my money. Okay, you know.
The 'oo-ar' bit's a joke and that lot. But it's still...
I still don't want it to do badly, you know?
I'll get you a beer.
Yeah.
Aw, mate.
[both chuckling]
- It's annoying though, isn't it? - [Jeremy] Yes.
- And we're in this together, aren't we? - [Jeremy] Yeah.
I'll go and get the trailer.
I'll drop this one off and then I'll meet you back here, yeah?
[Jeremy] Yeah.
[soft music]
[Jeremy] Once the rape was in, there was a harvesting pause,
so I went to London to see my new granddaughter...
Leaving Kaleb in charge of the now very pregnant pigs.
[pig grunting softly]
[Kaleb] She's very close.
She's extremely close. I reckon tonight?
[grunting continues]
She wants comfort.
A bit like going into the maternity centre with the other half.
Hold their hand...
Massage their back. [chuckling]
Scratch around their ears.
You're okay. Yeah.
Yeah, you're good.
Calms her down, look.
[soft grunt]
[Jeremy] The next day, the piglets started to appear.
[pig grunting]
Lots of them.
In fact there were so many...
[piglets squeaking]
that Dilwyn the vet had to come along
to do a bit of social engineering.
[Kaleb] Fifteen, sixteen in here.
Yeah, that's too many.
[Dilwyn] She'll be struggling to rear more than twelve.
- [Kaleb] Yeah. - [Dilwyn] Twelve, thirteen.
I think the best thing to do is to get the smaller ones
and put them over there.
[piglets squeaking]
She is farrowing outside.
[Kaleb] Yeah.
[Dilwyn] Put them over there. That'll give them a chance.
[Kaleb] Yeah.
Look at that.
[Dilwyn chuckles] Yeah, look at that. They are minute.
[Kaleb] They're tiny.
[Dilwyn] They are absolutely.
Look, a mother.
[pig grunting softly]
[pig honking]
[piglets squeaking]
[Kaleb] That's having a good feed now.
It's wicked, isn't it, when you see that.
[soft music]
[Jeremy] When I returned, Lisa and I rushed over to Pig City
to say hello to the new arrivals.
Oh...
[Jeremy] This is amazing!
[Lisa] Look at the size of that one.
They're heavy already!
And here you are. Sucking straw.
[Jeremy] Oh, my God! There's loads!
Well done!
We're not going to call you Swizz anymore.
In March, Swizz gave birth to three.
- [Lisa] That's right. - [Jeremy] This time, eleven.
- [Lisa] No! - [Jeremy] Yes.
- [Lisa] Swizz! - [Jeremy] Eleven.
[Jeremy] So the total number of pigs we had in March
- was 28 piglets. - Yeah.
This time, 53.
Whoa. I think that's because they're fit running up and down that hill.
[Jeremy] I think it's because they're happy because of the woods.
[Lisa] I think so.
But, this is the main thing for me, you know my pig ring?
[Lisa] Yes.
[Jeremy] Has it worked?
Last time,
28% were squashed by their mothers.
- Ooph. - [Jeremy] This time,
13%.
Oh, that's very good.
- That's excellent. - [Kaleb] Hey.
[Jeremy] Dude! Have you seen how many piglets we've got?
Have I seen? I was here helping deliver them.
[Kaleb] I'll tell you what, though. I hate to admit this, yes?
Clarkson's Ring? It works.
[Jeremy] Yeah.
I mean, you can just see, she's pushed up here against the ring
and the piglets can run behind her.
I mean, that's extraordinary.
[piglets squeaking]
[soft music]
[Jeremy] We then had to break off from pig midwifery
because it was time to harvest the barley.
And as Charlie had feared...
[Charlie] You know it went in a bit later?
Yeah.
[Charlie] It's now putting up all these little shoots here, look.
And those late-maturing ones will be a problem at harvest.
[Jeremy] There were signs that the erratic weather
had ruined this crop as well.
This is the barley. And the problem we've got here, look...
[Kaleb] Look at the green in that. That's a green one.
It shouldn't be doing that.
[epic music]
[Jeremy] The winter wheat was next in line for a haircut.
[epic music continues]
[Kaleb] Breakfast, lunch and dinner.
[Jeremy] And then, Kaleb headed over to the last of the big crops...
Durum wheat. Here we come.
Where he was teamed up with the assistant combine driver.
- You all right, mate? - You all right?
- [Gerald] Yeah. - [Kaleb] Good.
Yeah, you can't...
Them bloody things, you don't wanna be...
They'd be better off if you could... [Gerald speaking indistinctly]
It's all right. Don't worry about it. I thought I'd jump in and see you.
Yeah, that's fine.
[Gerald speaking indistinctly]
You must... Haven't even got time to fart, I should think.
They still don't know how to come in, which way to come in, do they?
You know, we can't get the rest tipped in this trailer yet.
It's still drying and what.
Only went to Romania, didn't it?
- Pardon? - It's all Mrs Hasting.
Simon is still in that place.
[Gerald speaking indistinctly]
[Gerald chuckling]
Yeah, that was farming, wasn't it?
Yeah.
[upbeat music]
[Jeremy] An exhausted Kaleb finished a couple of days later.
But there was very little time to relax...
[Kaleb] Hey!
[Jeremy] Because Charlie had returned...
[Kaleb] You haven't got a tan. Your limbs are all intact.
[Charlie] I'm all here.
[Jeremy] ...And immediately wanted a catch-up on the crops.
I got the spring barley in.
- [Charlie] Good. - [Kaleb] I hope that makes malting.
[Charlie] Yeah.
[Kaleb] That's the one that's worrying me the most.
[Charlie] Er, the durum, that must make pasta grade.
- Yeah. - [Charlie] Because Canada's having
a shocker again. It's really hot.
- [Charlie] So the price of durum... - What is the price of durum?
Really good.
- [Charlie] £500, £600 a tonne. - OK, yeah.
[Charlie] You go that side.
[Jeremy] While Charlie and Kaleb were collecting samples
to ascertain the quality of what we'd harvested,
I was pulling together the last bits of revenue
from farming the unfarmed,
with one unexpected income stream
coming from what traditionally is our most jinxed crop.
[Lisa] Heel, heel.
[Jeremy] Potatoes.
[Lisa] Arya, no, that's my potatoes! No!
Get off my potatoes! Go on this way.
No. You eejits. Go on. This way.
[Jeremy] Basically, Lisa had commandeered
one of the fields I'd earmarked for mustard
and planted spuds in it,
because she wanted to have another crack at making crisps.
Do you know how many crisps people eat in England every year?
- No. - Six billion.
- Six billion packets of crisps? - [Lisa] Packets.
- It's small wonder Lineker's so rich. - [Lisa] Yeah, exactly.
[Jeremy] This all sounded very exciting.
But working out how we stood financially
triggered another bout of Diddly Squat maths.
So we've got 50 tonnes. That's...
Well, one tonne is a hundred thousand kilos, isn't it? Yeah.
Is it?
- What's one tonne? - [Lisa laughing]
- [crew man] A thousand kilogrammes. - A thousand kilogrammes is one tonne.
Right.
So it's half a million grammes
divided by 120.
So you should be getting...
Four million...
No, 4,200 packets of crisps out of here.
[stuttering] How do you... No!
There's a million grammes in a ton.
So it's 50 million.
- I may have got my decimal point wrong. - I think you might have.
- 400,000 packets of crisps. - [Lisa] No.
No. That'll be 4,160,000...
[Jeremy] Lisa, your business plans are worse than mine.
[Lisa] No.
- Let's see your numbers on mustard. - I haven't done them.
How do you know you're going to be ahead?
It's in my mind...
[Jeremy] Eventually, we agreed
the potatoes would bring in... something or other.
And then, I set off with my trailer,
to harvest the mustard fields Lisa hadn't commandeered.
Ooh. This is gonna be tight.
[Jeremy] I think that will just about get the tractor through,
but what about the trailer?
[Jeremy] Erm...
[cracking and clanking]
Shit...
What the hell am I going to do now?
Well, how are we gonna get the combine in?
Well, how are you gonna get the tractor moved?
- I can get that out the way. - Go on then. Can you move this?
Because I'm properly stumped on that one.
- [clanking] - [Jeremy sighs]
[Jeremy] Don't do that!
[whirring]
Oh...
I did not think of doing that.
Bollocks.
Stu...
Fucking hell.
Theres's drivers and there's screwdrivers.
And you're a screwdriver.
No, I forgot I could lift it up. That would have got it through.
- Yeah. - But I forgot I could lift it up.
How are we gonna get that in, though, more importantly?
[Jeremy] Erm...
[Jeremy] The problem with planting crops on ground that's not usually farmed,
and I should have realised this,
is that none of the gates
are designed for modern farm machinery.
So, Simon and Kaleb had to make a long and irritating detour.
[Kaleb] Jesus Christ.
[Simon] Yeah.
[Jeremy] And then, to get into the actual mustard field,
we had to smash a fence down.
[Simon] Er, right. What are we doing here?
[Jeremy] This was the field where, five months earlier,
Kaleb had been less than impressed by my planting skills.
[Kaleb] Look, you started drilling here, and then you come along.
Fucking great miss.
Oh look, another miss.
[Jeremy] But, now we were here,
to me, the results looked pretty impressive.
[epic music]
So, once Simon had finished combining,
I brought my trailer in, ready to receive my load.
There's the fan.
And here comes the mustard. There it is, look at that!
There's tonnes of it!
Is that it?
Right...
Well, I guess I better cancel the speedboat order.
[Jeremy] Having readjusted my financial expectations,
I set about turning the few seeds I did have
into a delicious mustard.
What I've done so far
is put 1.3 litres of vegetable oil in there.
I'm now going to add, for 40 jars,
2.2 litres of cider vinegar.
I can see why James May decided to do a cookery show.
You just sit down and put things in jars.
Bee juice.
Cider!
Ah! 400 millilitres.
I may have overdone it with the cider but it'll be fine.
Light, soft brown sugar.
For the whisking, apparently, I have to be quite frantic. So...
I need a hat. Oh, here's a...
Apparently, this is a hat.
[liquid slushing]
Now, my mustard seeds now need to be cracked
to let the stuff out of them.
And I have a mustard cracker.
You just put the seeds in...
[crew man] Gotta take the lid off.
Why've they put a bloody...
Look at them.
Now, being careful to take the lid off your mustard cracker,
pour these into the top.
There we go. Lovely.
Ready?
[machine whirring]
Right. Now, that doesn't look very different,
but they have been cracked.
And whisk away.
[Jeremy] Once the finished mustard had been decanted into jars,
I took all, erm... 36 of them
up to the farm shop.
[Lisa] Wooh!
- [Lisa] Who thought! - [Jeremy] Check it out.
[Lisa] "Jeremy's Hot Seed."
Well, you know, it's mustard seed. Look. Cider and honey mustard.
[Lisa] "Hot seed"...
Those are cherries.
"Jeremy's Hot Seed" with a cherry either side.
[Jeremy] Yeah, I don't know why.
Is that an apple?
It could be apples. Yeah, it's apples. They're apples.
And they're £6.
But we need to explain...
Hm... No, for this size...
No, I've really done the maths on this.
£6. £7 in Dalesford.
It's quite small... Okay. £6, £5.50 each?
No, it's £6! If you wanna lose money, it's £5.50.
- It's £6. - Okay.
- I promise you, it's £6. - Okay.
[Jeremy] We were supposed to have grown... Erm...
Are those Christmas balls local?
[Lisa] Erm...
[soft music]
[Jeremy] The next morning,
Charlie came to see me with some important news,
because he'd had the results from the quality tests
on our crops.
- [Charlie] Morning, Jeremy. - Charlie, how are you?
[Jeremy] And I must be honest,
I was quite nervous.
The milling wheat... The winter wheat is milling wheat.
Yeah, it's made the grade.
Your durum wheat is exceptional.
- [Jeremy] Ooh! - On some counts.
And not quite so exceptional on others.
- [Charlie] 15% moisture. Spot-on. - [Jeremy] Yeah.
- Protein: 15.4. - Yeah.
- Exceptional. - Yeah.
[Charlie] Hagberg. It's meant to be 250.
It's 133.
So, that's how elastic the dough would be.
It gives it a nice elasticity. So, stretchy dough.
[Charlie] You know how pasta...
I'd love to pretend I knew what that meant.
It can't be used.
- So we can't make pasta out of it. - [Charlie] We can't make pasta out of it.
So we just have to feed it to the cows that we don't have.
Yeah.
[groaning] How many tonnes did we have?
[Charlie] We had about 150.
[Jeremy] 150 tonnes,
and we should have got £400 a tonne for it.
- Yeah. - [Jeremy] That's £60,000.
And we're actually going to get...
What do we get?
Probably, with feed wheat today, we'd make 175.
26,250.
So we've lost £33,750.
- [Charlie] So... -£33,750.
Because it rained.
[sighs]
[Charlie] It doesn't stop I'm afraid.
- So we've got... - What, it gets worse?
We've got the barley results back.
So the barley...
Well, it won't germinate.
Because some of it, as it says, it's just dead.
So it doesn't have the required germination.
So what does it mean?
[Charlie] It means we can't use it for malting barley.
Fucking hell.
How are we gonna make the beer?
Erm...
[Jeremy] And again, just forgetting the beer for the moment,
what would we have achieved had we sold it?
There are about 180 tonnes of barley.
And it would have gone for...
[Charlie] 235.
- A tonne. - [Charlie] Yeah.
So we'd have got £42,000,
if we could have sent it down to Hawkstone.
Yeah.
- And what are we going to get? - 160?
As animal feed again?
- 28,000, so we've lost... - 14,000.
14,000.
So we've lost 14,000 on the barley.
- 30,000... - 34,000.
34,000 on pasta wheat.
Barley is a problem.
That is a big problem. I've gotta ring the brewery now.
[Charlie] Your durum wheat, unless we can improve that a little bit,
which it might improve in store, it sometimes does,
it's feed wheat.
But I'm not in full despair of this yet.
Oh, it's all fucking terrible news.
[Charlie] So, we've... I...
Yeah. I'm not enjoying this job this year.
[Jeremy] To cheer myself up after this dire forecast,
I decided it was time to spring a nice surprise on Lisa.
So, on a lovely sunny day, I drove us over to see Tim,
the cow farmer.
Follow me.
- I like a little bit of a run-out. Aw! - [Jeremy] I know.
- [Jeremy coughs] - [Lisa gasps]
No...
[Jeremy] Pepper!
- [Lisa] Aw! No way! - [Jeremy] Yeah.
- We haven't seen her for a year - Of course it is. Look at her face.
- [Jeremy] And the really big surprise. - [Lisa] Yeah?
That is Pepper's calf.
[Lisa] I don't understand.
[Jeremy] Pepper got pregnant.
- This is Pepper's calf. - Aw!
Little... [Lisa gasps]
- [Lisa] You are the cutest little thing. - [Jeremy] You are a sweetheart.
[Lisa] Look at the little Diddly Pepper!
[Jeremy] Really good-looking calf.
Oh, look at her little... She's got her little snubby face!
[Lisa gasps] Pepper, well done. You look fantastic as well.
[Lisa gasps]
[Jeremy] No, because when I said to Charlie,
what will happen to Pepper when all the mothers...
Could we send them back to Tim?
He said, "I wouldn't ask questions that you don't wanna hear the answer to."
[Jeremy] Imagine my surprise when, nine months later...
[Lisa] That's the best surprise you could have given me.
Aw!
[Jeremy] Tim!
How the bloody hell did you do that?
[Tim] The same bull that was at yours.
- [Lisa] No. - [Jeremy] The same bull?
- [Lisa] Maestro? - [Tim] Yeah, Maestro.
- [Jeremy] Breakheart? - [Tim] Breakheart Maestro.
What, you mean we brought her back here and she got up the duff immediately?
Yeah. About a month afterwards.
[Lisa] That's a bit rude, to be honest, Tim.
- She didn't like Oxfordshire, yeah? - She didn't like Oxfordshire.
She's moved back into Northamptonshire. Yeah, she doesn't like...
She doesn't like the Oxford District Council.
- [Tim] Yeah, so a little heifer calf. - [Lisa] That's amazing.
And Rose and Harry have called her Tabatha.
- [Jeremy] Tabatha? - [Tim] Or Tabby for short. Yeah.
- [Tim] She's quite a character. - [Jeremy] Is she?
- Pepper and Tabby. - Pepper and Tabby, yeah.
- [Lisa] So gorgeous. - [Tim] And she's a really good mum.
- [Jeremy] I'm just so thrilled. - [Lisa] I know...
Now everything's shit, apart from that.
That's fantastic.
The world's most famous cow is now a mum.
[soft music]
[Jeremy] A week later, all the results from the harvest were in,
which meant it was time for the grand whiteboard finale.
- [Jeremy] Well, here we are. - [Kaleb] Big moment.
[Jeremy] Kaleb and I therefore met in the office
to find out who'd won.
[Jeremy] So...
By farming the unfarmed land of the farm...
I made £27,614.
[Kaleb] Profit?
- Profit. - [Kaleb] Wow.
[Jeremy] That is an awful lot of work
for not quite enough money to buy a Mini Countryman.
I could earn more than that
by making people cups of coffee on Paddington Station.
- But... - It's still a profit, though.
You've done better than I thought you would have.
Look at the cows.
The cow. That, honestly...
that is, as a cow farmer,
that is amazing.
- How many cows was that? - That was from five.
£5,000 a cow.
The average beef farmer now would be getting, as a fat cattle,
maybe £1,800.
Well that is because we got the burger van.
Yeah, we have an outlet for them.
Yeah.
Mushrooms, look at that.
That's... I mean, we should definitely do more mushrooms.
- [Jeremy] Look at that. - But not like eat more mushrooms.
Nearly £7,000 profit on mushrooms. That was a good idea.
The goats...
- Are you gonna keep the goats? - Yeah, of course.
You should slaughter them.
What do you mean "slaughter them"?
- You should kill them, and then eat them. - No!
- They're 29 boy goats.
- You can't do anything with them. - No. I like them.
- Nettles, total disaster. - Yeah, let's not do that.
- The venison... - I think we should keep doing it,
because there's so many deer around.
I mean, the upshot is, it didn't lose money.
You got a profit of £27,014, but it was a lot of work.
- [Charlie] Hello. - All right, Charlie.
- [Charlie] Hi. How are you? - Just doing my numbers.
[Charlie] That's very good.
[Jeremy] Look at this.
A 30% uplift on farming the unfarmed.
That's a 50% uplift.
- No. - [Charlie] Yes.
- [Jeremy] Why is it? - Because you've made 27,000,
and you've spent 50...
- [Jeremy] 53. - Just under 54.
[Charlie] So...
If you gave me a pound,
I've given you £1,50 back.
- That's exactly what's just happened. - Oh.
- Oh, I've... - [Kaleb] I'm so fucking confused.
I don't get it. Anyway.
We haven't lost money. That's the important thing!
- He's made a profit! - I've made a profit.
[Jeremy] With my side out of the way,
it was now time for Charlie to let Kaleb know how he'd done.
[Jeremy] Right. Green or red?
You want the red one first.
So, contractors, this is paying you, paying Simon,
and hiring.
£46,279.
OK?
So that gave you a total cost...
183,000.
- 100... - [Charlie] £183,011.
- 0,1,1. - 180?
So that's how much...
It's mad to think you've gotta spend that to grow food.
That, all that cost, is to simply...
[Jeremy] I know. And then,
we haven't... Now my heart's really going to pitter-patter.
- [Kaleb] So is mine. - [Charlie] So, rapeseed.
- Green pen, isn't it? - [Charlie] Green pen.
Rape, we actually... There was more of it than...
[Charlie] £10,172.
[Jeremy] So, it looks like you were right to plant rape.
[Kaleb] Right and wrong.
One field was very, very poor, yes?
But luckily, and I thank Berry Hill South for this,
we had a really good harvest in there.
- And the yield... - Was really high.
- The one that looked awful... - Was good.
- And the field that looked... - But if you hadn't grown rape,
you would have planted something else
which would have been even more profitable than that.
Yes. But luckily, I covered my costs and made a little bit on the rape.
[Jeremy] No, you have.
Okay, good. All right. What have we got next?
- Wheat. - [Kaleb] Wheat.
Er, the good news: it made milling.
And we put... Yes.
[Charlie] Yeah, the winter wheat...
- So that's bread, it's human food. - Bread wheat.
[Charlie] £93,204.
[Jeremy] And that's at £250 a tonne.
£250 a tonne, yeah.
Come on, let's keep going.
- Oats made milling. - [Kaleb] Yeah.
[Charlie] There's been a real disaster in Northern Europe this year with oats.
What a rotten bit of luck for the Finns.
[Charlie] £26,835.
Then we come down to grass seed, which was your haylage field
- at the top. - Yup.
[Charlie] 4,890.
[Jeremy] How many cuts did you get, in the end?
- [Kaleb] Three. - You did get three?
But it didn't make any hay.
So we won't be able to sell any to Amanda Holden.
No, unfortunately not.
- Andy Cato's field? - [Kaleb] Wildfarmed.
[Charlie] £7,206.
It's not as good as our best wheat field, but it's better than our worst.
[Jeremy] So that's made a profit.
If that was winter wheat, we'd have got...
No, no. Ah, ah. If I might.
Let's be positive.
Okay, you might have earned more if we'd have farmed your way.
But we haven't lost any money.
And we might, and hopefully we have...
- [Kaleb] Improved the soil. - Improved the soil.
And that is something I'm...
I don't wanna sound like some virtue-signalling idiot on Instagram,
but I do care about the soil. So that's... good.
[Jeremy] Durum wheat? Pasta?
You didn't think it was gonna make it, did you?
No, and it has.
- Has it? - [Charlie] So...
it got up to 170 Hagberg,
but because this year's been so difficult, you know,
we've worked with Matthew, they've milled it and made a grist,
so it's made pasta.
- Yes! - [Jeremy] That is good news.
- [Kaleb] We got milling on the wheat. - [Jeremy applauds]
[Charlie] £60,165.
- We are going to... - [Kaleb] 60,000...
[Charlie] 1, 6, 5.
1, 6, 5!
That looks like a good round number, doesn't it there? Look at it!
Jesus Christ. It's fantastic.
- [Charlie] However, spring barley... - [Jeremy] Here it is.
We can't use it to make Hawkstone beer, can we?
It's the finest quality animal feed.
[Jeremy chuckles]
[Charlie] 25,526.
[Kaleb] But if we got malting on the spring barley,
we would have made £60,000?
Pretty much double.
[Jeremy] Okay.
Now can we do the adding up? This is the important thing.
- [Kaleb] So, green pen, bottom right. - You've gotta beat 27,600.
So, 200...
What?
[Charlie] And 27,998.
- [Kaleb cackles] - So your total, at the top, is 44,000...
[Jeremy] He's beating me.
[Charlie] 987.
[Jeremy] Well, there you go.
[Kaleb] Wooh!
Well done. First year of being farm manager
and you've kicked my arse completely.
But we're a team.
[Jeremy] So if we add those two together... 40, 50...
[Charlie] 72,5.
- [Kaleb] 72. - [Jeremy] £72,000.
- Well, I mean, that is pretty... - [Charlie] A thousand acres.
It's £72 an acre.
We can go to the pub today then.
[Charlie] But, Kaleb, as you know,
farms always demand cash, don't they?
And we've started next year's cycle.
So actually, I need all of that to fund the seed,
- the fertiliser and the sprays. - What?
- So we can't go to the pub? - [Charlie] No.
- What, you need every single penny? - [Charlie] Every single penny.
The seed, ferts and sprays. That's not even covering the contracting charge.
[Kaleb] So, I'll take you for a pint then.
[Jeremy chuckles]
I'll tell you something else.
If I hadn't have farmed the unfarmed, we'd be in trouble.
[Charlie] Yeah.
[Jeremy] The other thing as well
is that, again, I'm in the fortunate position of having other income streams.
But if you're a normal farmer and this is your full-time and only job,
you get two years where you don't make any money...
- Yeah. - You're screwed.
It's really tough.
Because of the fluctuations we saw in the price of wheat
- and in the price of fertiliser... - [Kaleb] Yeah.
You don't know where you are. You can't plan.
Literally a butterfly can flap its wings in China and you go bankrupt.
It's that nuts.
You used to have a relatively stable income
in terms of subsidies but they're going.
- It's really hard to... - [Kaleb] I'd like to think
the future of farming is bright and light for young generations coming in.
Especially me! I'm 25 years old.
I've got maybe potentially 60 harvests left.
How? How?
I don't know! I honestly don't know.
- How? - [Kaleb] But I want to stay positive
because I love what I do.
I'm gonna speak to the president again. The Prime Minister, sorry.
- [chuckling] President! - [Kaleb] Fucking hell.
President...
[Jeremy] It was hard, giving Charlie every penny we'd made
to buy seed and fertiliser for the following year.
["Where Do The Children Play?" by Cat Stevens playing]
Because it meant we'd been through a lot
to earn nothing at all.
♪ Well I think it's fine ♪
♪ Building jumbo planes ♪
♪ Or taking a ride ♪
♪ On a cosmic train ♪
♪ I know we've come a long way ♪
♪ We're changing day to day ♪
♪ But tell me, where do the children play? ♪
♪ When you crack the sky ♪
♪ Scrapers fill the air ♪
♪ But will you keep on building higher ♪
♪ Til there's no more room up there? ♪
♪ I know we've come a long way ♪
♪ We're changing day to day ♪
♪ But tell me, where do the children play? ♪
[Jeremy] Yup. It had been yet another tumultuous year.
But, as is now customary,
Team Diddly Squat gathered to mark its passing...
[all laughing]
With a picnic in the woods
next to one of my lesser triumphs.
Dam's not quite finished.
[Kaleb chuckling] Look at it!
- [Jeremy] You know we've gone backwards. - [Charlie] I was about to say.
- Have you actually started it? - [Lisa] It's such a mess.
That is a disgrace, to be honest. Both of you.
It's like a pair of children have been playing down there, innit?
- Yeah. - What?
[all laughing]
[Lisa] That's exactly what it is.
[Lisa and Jeremy] Wow!
[Lisa laughing]
[Jeremy] Dogs are still untrained.
- [Lisa] You are filthy! - [Jeremy] No, go away. Go away.
[Jeremy] I was thinking the other day.
Farmers moan. Often with good reason.
Bloody difficult. Don't get much pay.
Get lambasted by everybody for harming the environment.
Why are they fighting to keep the industry going?
You know, why would you?
And then I remembered you saying four years ago,
"It's a way of life, farming."
- You'd agree. - [Gerald] Yeah.
[Jeremy] Yeah. I mean, you know, in the first year I went,
"Shall I go back to London or shall I stay here?"
It doesn't even enter my head...
- Oh, fuck. - [Jeremy laughing]
[all laughing]
[Jeremy] It doesn't even enter my head now.
I mean, I've gotta go to London next Tuesday...
I'm already dreading it and trying to think of excuses for not going.
- You know you went away to Africa? - [Jeremy] Yeah.
- I hate to admit this. - [Jeremy] Yeah.
I kinda missed you.
The plane's gonna crash just as you say that.
When you said "kind of"...
Really?
I missed him as a person, not his helping on the farm.
- What do you want, Kaleb? - Our little cup of teas,
our little chats, our meal out on the weekend, our chit-chats,
farming chats, and...
- You do need that community around. - Yeah.
You do need that sort of... Otherwise, it's quite a lonely...
[Jeremy] I know.
And we've had the usual year of rows, difficulties,
bad weather, disappointments, deaths.
The pigs were just awful. Baroness and so on.
But, let us look at it this way.
I became a grandfather for the first time,
since we were last here.
You became a father again.
And you,
the G Dog, beat the Big C.
Yeah.
- [Jeremy] We can drink to that. - Yeah.
- Cheers. - [Jeremy] Well done, mate.
- [Jeremy] Well done, well done. - Cheers. Thank you.
- Well done. - Thank you.
- And thank you. - [Lisa] You're welcome.
Thank you everybody for helping to make this the best job in the world.
I would like to thank everybody,
all the film crew and all of my friends here.
All of you have been so kind to me and my family.
Thank you very much.
- [Jeremy] Gerald, that's brilliant. - [Lisa] We're here for you all the time.
That's good.
[all] Cheers.
Cheers, guys.
["Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves" by Cher playing]
♪ I was born in the wagon of a travelin' show ♪
♪ My mama used to dance for the money they'd throw ♪
♪ Papa would do whatever he could ♪
♪ Preach a little gospel ♪
♪ Sell a couple bottles of Doctor Good ♪
♪ Gypsies, tramps, and thieves ♪
♪ We'd hear it from the people of the town ♪
♪ They'd call us gypsies, tramps, and thieves ♪
♪ But every night all the men would come around ♪
♪ And lay their money down ♪
♪ I never had schoolin' but he taught me well ♪
♪ With his smooth southern style ♪
♪ Three months later, I'm a gal in trouble ♪
♪ And I haven't seen him for a while ♪
♪ I haven't seen him for a while ♪
♪ She was born in the wagon of a travelin' show ♪
♪ Her mama had to dance for the money they'd throw ♪
♪ Grandpa'd do whatever he could ♪
♪ Preach a little gospel ♪
♪ And sell a couple bottles of Doctor Good ♪
♪ Gypsies, tramps, and thieves ♪
♪ We'd hear it from the people of the town ♪
♪ They'd call us gypsies, tramps, and thieves ♪
♪ But every night all the men would come around ♪
♪ And lay their money down ♪