[theme music playing]
[birds chirping]
[soft orchestral music]
[Jeremy] It was now early April.
["Short Change" by The Heavy]
And after the misery of all the pig deaths,
the arrival of spring gave everyone
a much-needed lift.
[music continues]
- [Kaleb] Look at it! It's lovely! - [Charlie] Yeah.
[Lisa] Pig, pig, pig, pig.
[music continues]
[Jeremy] We could also now get back to the business of planting
and growing and making food.
So I fired up the Lambo,
because I'd had another farming the unfarmed brainwave.
All over the farm, there are splodges of land like this,
an acre here, two acres there and so on,
which, over the years, I've used to grow maize, mostly,
which is great for the songbirds.
It's good food for them and it's somewhere for them to hide.
It's also been quite useful for the pheasants
that I rear to shoot at Christmas time, but we'll gloss over that.
But instead of maize,
what I'm going to plant in here
is mustard.
Still great for the songbirds. They love eating it and hiding in it.
And then I can turn it into English mustard
which I can sell in the shop
and in the burger van as an accompaniment to my pork.
[rock music]
By my maths,
this one little patch here is going to generate
40,000 jars of mustard.
The only problem with that is that every single bit of maths
I've done over the last four years on the farm
has turned out to be wrong.
[Jeremy] Meanwhile, Kaleb was busy in one of the other fields,
as the soil was finally dry enough for him to plant his durum wheat.
So, winter wheat is roughly about £340 a tonne at the moment,
which is basically your breads and your doughs, etc.
But this wheat is a spring crop and it's basically your pastas.
And it's worth about £500 a tonne,
so there's a massive difference between the two.
I think I'm about a month late because of that March rain.
It just never stopped raining.
I'm hoping, fingers crossed,
that it doesn't affect the yields and it'll be fine.
[Kaleb on radio] This is fun, isn't it? Some tractor driving again.
[Jeremy on radio] Yeah, I know. I like it.
[Jeremy] And up she goes.
And down she goes.
I'm just remembering my first ever attempts at cultivating,
what, four years ago?
Er...
Now look at me.
I'm learning.
[tense music]
[Jeremy] The next day, though,
when I returned to plant the mustard seeds...
[Jeremy] Right, I'm drilling mustard.
That is what I'm doing.
[Jeremy] I came up against my number-one irritation.
[Jeremy] Oh, shit.
Absolutely no way I can see my marker.
Well, how the bloody hell am I supposed to...?
I've explained this a million times before, but this...
little...
metal beetle that I'm dragging along here
is 3 m to the left of the tractor,
so when I turn round and come back,
if I keep the mark it's making
centred on my bonnet,
I know I'm 3 m away from the bit I've already done.
Problem is, it's not leaving a mark. Not really.
I'm just guessing where I've planted. I've absolutely no idea.
[Jeremy] It was all very tricky and annoying.
But at least,
time in the tractor did give me head space
to dream up new ways of farming the unfarmed.
And soon, I had a brainwave,
which I was keen to share with Charlie.
Mushrooms.
Mushrooms?
Mushrooms.
Okay. Good.
Erm... why? We've got quite a lot going on.
Yes, we have got quite a lot going on. But this is incredibly easy.
I've been looking into this. I've done a business plan.
You've done a business plan?
We get two hundred blocks. Er... bags. Okay?
- [Charlie] Grow bags? - Basically, yes.
And the first time they grow... In two weeks,
we will have 1.2 kilograms of mushrooms.
Yep.
[Jeremy] Which we can sell
for £24 per kilogram if they're grey oysters.
And in the first flush, the profit...
-"In the first flush?" What's a flush? - Two weeks.
Two weeks? So first growing period.
- The first growing period, two weeks. - Two weeks.
£3,620.
Okay. That's impressive.
- [Jeremy] It is impressive. - It's almost too impressive.
This is minusing the costs of the bags, to buy the grow bags.
- [Charlie] Yeah. - It's got the... [sniffing]
the mushroom spores, I suppose, in already.
[Charlie] Yeah.
The second time they flush...
So you get more than one harvest.
The second time they flush, you get only
350 grams per bag.
So it goes down from 1.2
to 350 grams. But you don't have to buy the bag again.
So the profit drops from £3,620
to £2,135.
- [Charlie] Okay. Yeah. - Yes, but it's still pretty good.
So that's £5,700 and...?
And then you get a third flush. Again, £2,100.
Then you're done, your bags are done.
- And you replace them with 200 more. - Yep.
- [Jeremy] Bags. Blocks. - Yep.
- So about £8,000. - [Jeremy] Yeah.
- [Charlie] So do you need power? - You do.
Just a tiny bit for a little heater.
Yeah, but you might not need very much,
- but the cable's quite a lot of money. - Yes.
- Who's... Are you gonna pick them? - [Jeremy] Yes.
- [Charlie] Where are you selling them? - In the shop.
- You say there's a profit of £8,000. - [Jeremy] Yes! Wooden shelving.
- [Jeremy] I'm gonna get Alan to-- - Oh, here we go. There are more costs.
Well, of course, there are costs!
A fogger fan: £40.
Extraction fan for hatch: £100.
- Grow-room lights: £60. - Yeah. Yeah.
- Ultrasonic fogger: £160. - Yeah.
Water hoover for cleaning: £95.
- Total: £455. - Which is brilliant.
But they all run on electricity which you haven't got there.
But I actually quite like this idea.
- [Jeremy] You do? - I think it's quite good.
You look at my workings out.
I'm not gonna check your workings. I'm not a maths teacher.
- I just... - I'm just getting a bit better now
- at planning the costs of things... - [Charlie stammers]
...before I do something
- rather than working out afterwards. - Yep.
[Jeremy] Mushroom meeting over,
Charlie then insisted we register the piglet births
with the government's pig police.
And this meant deploying
the entire Diddly Squat mathematics team.
[Jeremy] Well, how many piglets died in the end?
- Two from the first one. - Three from the first one.
- [Jeremy] Three from the first one. - No, she gave birth to ten.
- [Jeremy] Five. - Five.
Second sow, down here, had ten. Sat on two.
[Charlie] But there are only seven remaining.
- Are you sure she hasn't got eight? - [Lisa] I counted eight the other day.
We're never gonna get this done.
[Jeremy] We've now been an hour and we've registered one.
Two.
[groaning]
[Jeremy] Sadly, I had to leave the maths class early,
because I'd arranged to show Alan the Builder
the site I'd earmarked for my mushroom operation.
[upbeat music]
[Jeremy] Right, so mushroom production.
There's this place, which you can't even see.
[Alan laughs]
- [Alan] Not brilliant, no. - This is the old pumping house
- for the farm. - [Alan] Yes.
- [Jeremy] 150 years ago? - Victorian pumping station, yeah.
[Alan] Good God!
- [Jeremy] Easy repair job for you. - Fucking hell!
[Alan] Not a prayer.
[Jeremy] And the perfect mushroom-growing facility.
- [Alan] No. It's dangerous. - What do you mean "no"?
- [Jeremy] What's dangerous? - The lot will fall down on somebody.
[Jeremy] It won't!
Go and jump on it!
That old barrelled arch, look, they've put soil on the top.
Anybody puts any weight on there, that'll just collapse.
Yeah, we can't do that.
Are you familiar with Brunel's Maidenhead Bridge?
[Alan] Who?
No, mate. Look, it's rotten. Look.
- [Jeremy] No, you... - Yeah, but I--
- [Jeremy] Don't pull things over. - But it's gonna fall over very shortly.
- It's gonna be in this stream. - [Jeremy] But it's...
Look at all those arches in cathedrals from the 12th century!
And there's all this shit everywhere in our way.
- Don't get me wrong. I can do it. - [Jeremy] Yeah.
[Alan] It's just gonna cost an absolute fortune.
[Jeremy] I've never heard so many negative waves.
[Alan] Fuckin' hell.
We'll be growing mushrooms the rest of our lives and still make no money.
- All right. Come on then. - [Alan] Sorry, boss.
[rock music]
[Jeremy] I then took him to a backup site:
an underground bunker
at the top end of the farm on land which had once been an airfield.
[Jeremy] I think it's an air-raid shelter, personally.
It was an American bomber base in the Second World War.
Yeah. We'll see.
- What I was saying to you-- - This is going to be a mushroom facility.
- But look here. - Our security needs beefing up.
- [Alan] Well, where is Gerald? - I'm gonna put a sign. Yes, quite.
- He's getting better. - [Alan] Yeah, he is.
- 'Cause he's having radiotherapy. - [Alan] Yeah, he is.
[Jeremy] We need some light.
- Is that concrete? - [Alan] Yes, it's concrete.
- Yeah, you can see the bars, look. - [Jeremy] Oh yeah.
Well, the sceptics will have overdone it. There'll be concrete be this thick.
They will have done.
I mean, it's obviously a lot bigger than the pumping house.
- [Alan] Easy access. - Yeah.
- Don't need planning permission. - [Alan] No it's already here.
So, listen. This ain't big money, is it?
- [Jeremy] Dunno. - No!
- [Jeremy] What's not big money?
- [Alan laughs] - [Jeremy] Rough guess?
Oh, you... He always does this to me.
[Alan] Fucking hell.
Well, it's one of those things that is kind of normal,
to ask a builder how much something's likely to--
[Alan] Yeah, but I've only looked at it two minutes ago.
Let's just say we could do it for less than ten grand.
[Jeremy] Oh!
- [Alan] Now that's a bargain! - Well, that would be good.
[Alan] Honestly, we'd turn this round in a week, wouldn't we?
- I've never heard builders... - [Alan] We'll have you up and running.
"I can do it in a week and for less than ten grand."
- Nobody's ever heard this. - Listen.
By the time I've started work, you'll be able to advertise them down the shop.
That's how quick I'll be.
[both laughing]
[upbeat music]
[Jeremy] As Alan went off to get supplies,
I started work on another brainwave I'd had.
Nettles.
The woods were literally carpeted with them.
And I'd decided they could be used to make soup.
- [Jeremy] All right, Lucca? - How's it going?
[Jeremy] Lucca is Diddly Squat's Swiss Army knife.
He's a racing driver,
he works at the farm shop,
and he comes from a famous Irish cooking dynasty.
[Jeremy] Right, so, nettle soup.
Lucca actually made some for me about... When was it? Last year?
- [Lucca] Yes. - About the nicest thing
I've ever put in my mouth.
It was stunning.
All the ingredients we need are here. Potatoes, onions, we've got here.
[Jeremy] What else do you need?
So we've got nettles. We've got onions. We've got spuds.
Salt, pepper,
chicken stock, cream and butter.
- [Jeremy] And that's it? - Yeah.
[upbeat music]
[Jeremy] Once Lucca had finished cooking,
I just needed someone with a sophisticated palate
to taste it.
- [Jeremy] You've never had nettle soup? - [Kaleb] I've never had nettle soup.
[Jeremy] I mean, look at the colour of that.
The colour is unbelievable.
[Lucca] It's a good, thick soup as well,
so with some of our sourdough, it'll go great.
[Jeremy] Mm.
Christ. That's good.
- [Kaleb] Wow! - It's properly good, isn't it?
- [Kaleb] Mate! You can cook! - [Jeremy laughs]
Wow!
And the funny thing is, nobody knows what a nettle tastes like.
- [Kaleb] What does it taste like? - But you know it's a nettle.
In the aftertaste you should get a bit of a nettle kind of taste.
[Kaleb] It's lovely.
[Jeremy] Mm.
- [Jeremy] You'd sell this at the shop. - [Kaleb] I mean...
That's the only thing that worries me about our board now.
If you make a lot of that...
[Jeremy chuckles]
[Jeremy] We've got to get that in the shop.
- That is going to be our next big thing. - [Lucca] Yeah.
[Kaleb] I'm gonna spray them all off so you can't do it.
- [Jeremy] No you're not. - [Kaleb and Jeremy laugh]
[rock music]
[Jeremy] With the tasting completed,
I borrowed some serious harvesting fire power
and headed off into the woods.
I found this,
which is used for harvesting tea.
[engine roaring]
It's basically like a hedge clipper, yeah?
This is a fan that blows the leaves into the bag.
And then,
if an alien comes,
I can do a Sigourney Weaver on it.
[engine roaring]
Right.
Harvesting!
[engine sputtering]
Oh no.
What I've done is I've harvested my own collection sack.
That's plainly not supposed to have happened.
Oh, dear.
Oh, God. It hit me in the face.
[sighing]
Oh...
[sighing]
Right. I'm attached to a tree and my bag's stuck in the...
Oh! Fucking hell.
Ow.
Bloody hell.
[sighs] For fuck's sake.
[upbeat music]
[Jeremy] I stuck at it
until my ageing body could take no more.
Oh, my back.
[sighing in pain]
[Jeremy] And then, I headed back to the farm with my loot...
[Jeremy] Lovely. Hundreds and hundreds of them.
[Jeremy] ...where, it turned out, there was a problem.
Lucca had said he only wanted young, sweet nettles.
But my machine hadn't got the memo.
[Jeremy] I think it's harvested grass, blackberries, trees,
buildings.
The best way to get nettles picked, if you want nettles picked,
is a few young lads there from the farm shop.
Do you think the kids in the shop will go and pick nettles?
Yeah. Definitely.
Pay them £8.50 an hour.
[Jeremy] But that brings me onto the costings.
So to make 200 jars,
- we've got to spend £38 on butter. - [Lucca] Okay.
-£77 on cream. - [Lucca] Right.
The nettles are free. Well, they...
But not if I have to start paying someone to go and pick them.
Potatoes, they're £6.40.
Stock, which we bought from the supermarket: £67.
And the containers are £120.
Labels will be £50.
Now, I reckon we can sell them for a fiver each.
[Lucca] Easily.
- [Jeremy] You reckon? - Oh yeah. Big time.
[Jeremy] Sadly, before we had a chance to finish the calculations,
Mister Rules and Regulations arrived...
[Charlie] Hello.
[Jeremy] ...to make his usual tiresome contribution.
Has he got his Environmental Health?
- Lucca? - [Lucca] Yeah?
Have you got your Environmental Health...
- [Charlie] Certificate. - Certificate?
Yeah, yeah.
That sounded like...
[Charlie] It's almost like Lisa said, "Yes, yes."
[all laughing]
[Jeremy] Do they teach you in Ireland how to say, "Yeah, yeah" when you mean "no"?
I'm convinced in Ireland there's actual lessons
where you go, "When someone asks you a question and the answer is 'no',
- say 'yes' but say it like this." - [Charlie] Twice!
-"Yeah, yeah." - [Charlie] "Yeah, yeah."
-"Yeah, yeah." -"Yeah, yeah."
Have you actually got it?
Er, yeah, no. In fact...
[Charlie] "Yeah, no!" Okay! There's a variation on a theme!
What goes in your nettle soup?
- Butter, cream... - [Jeremy] Yeah. What we're--
Okay, so, you'll need to put a "best before" label on it.
[Jeremy] Yeah.
- You haven't thought about that? - Yeah, yeah.
- [Charlie laughs] - Yeah, no.
Yeah, yeah.
I'm learning.
[soft music]
[Jeremy] Leaving Lucca to get on with the soup operation,
I went off to the wild-farmed wheat and bean field
to do chemistry with Andy Cato.
[Andy] This is a Brix test,
which is gonna measure the amount of sugar
in whatever plant we test.
So what we're gonna do is gather some leaves,
put them in the garlic crusher,
squeeze a bit of liquid onto that lens and see what it says.
You wanna give it a whirl?
When I thought I'd be a farmer I never thought:
"Oh, I need a garlic crusher, for sure, and a microscope."
[Andy] Grab some leaves. You need more than you think.
[Jeremy] Right.
[Andy] There we go.
- [Jeremy] Back at school now. - Every day's a school day.
So have a look through there, towards the sun.
And you should see a blue bit and a white bit.
[Jeremy] Just above five. I'm gonna say six?
[Andy] Six.
That level of Brix means that the plants haven't got all the nutrients they need.
So we'll do a sap test, which is kind of like a blood test for a plant.
And the point is obviously not to just go for the pretty ones.
Just walk in a straight line and take what's in front of you.
[Jeremy] I've got you.
[Andy] All right?
Perfect. I'll get these off to the lab.
[rock music]
[Jeremy] When the tests came back,
I was away filming again for The Grand Tour.
So, Charlie and Kaleb had to discuss the results with Andy.
[Charlie] Test results show...
[Andy] Reveal.
[Charlie] Erm...
Blue's good. Green's good. Red is bad.
- [Kaleb] Magnesium. - [Charlie] Magnesium.
[Charlie] So, to get the crops sort of,
- you know, balanced out... - [Kaleb] Balanced out.
[Charlie] We need to put some magnesium on them.
Luckily, we can put that on in a very simple form.
Epsom salts.
- [Andy] Bath salts. - Bath salts. Literally.
But I thought we wasn't putting anything on this.
- I thought we was just gonna leave it. - [Andy] No, no, no.
We can't just leave it because we can't just sort of hope
that the soil is at a point
where it can provide the crop with everything that it needs.
And when things are lacking, we use a natural nutritional product,
like bath salts in this case,
- to put it right. - I see.
[Jeremy] I'm not sure he did see,
judging by the amount of moaning he did while applying the bath salts.
My wheat looks better.
Why is it so patchy?
Really green and then like...
And really thin there.
[Jeremy] Moaning which carried on even after he'd finished.
[Charlie] All right?
I mean, he comes over, tells me,
as a farmer, what to do, you, what to do.
I don't go to his house and say he needs a guitar in a certain song.
I'm not sure he's telling us what to do.
I think he's giving us the background of his ideas
and how they want to grow stuff.
It annoys me.
Is that because it's a different way of doing things?
As a farmer, I don't like change. I think every farmer don't like change.
I hate this field now.
[upbeat music]
[Jeremy] When I came back from my filming trip,
I decided we should get on with the dam repairs.
And, to stop the arguing this usually caused,
Kaleb and I said we should "transition."
- Remember, when you put this on... - Yeah?
We are construction workers.
- Right. Not farmers. - Exactly.
So I'm now perfectly safe.
Like a cup of tea?
- Tea break? - Yeah.
Ten o'clock. Tea.
- [Jeremy chuckles] - All right.
[Jeremy] All right. Tea break. Then what?
[Kaleb] We roll a fag.
Then another tea break when we smoke the cigarette?
No, no, no, no. No. Don't smoke the cigarette on your tea break.
You have your tea and then smoke it when you start work again.
So anyone in construction's going to be very angry with us for saying this.
I don't think so. I think they understand. I think they know.
They know exactly what they're doing.
[Jeremy laughs]
[upbeat music]
[Jeremy] Job one was to drop some clay off at the side of the dam.
[Jeremy] Oh, God strewth.
[wheelbarrow beeping]
[Kaleb] Er...
[Jeremy] What?
What?
[Kaleb] A little bit of clay went in there.
- [Kaleb chuckles] - [Jeremy] A little bit?
- We'd better discuss that. - [Kaleb] Over a cup of tea!
[Jeremy laughs]
[Kaleb and Jeremy sighing contentedly]
[sighing]
[Jeremy sighing]
[Jeremy] Who've we got tomorrow? Is it West Brom? No.
Who, Chelsea?
No. Brentford.
- [Kaleb] You're gonna lose that. - Oh I know we are.
I think we could be relegated.
I think we're gonna meet Wrexham coming the other way.
You may as well join them. Get in for the fame. Ryan Reynolds.
Fucking hell, we've got Chadlington now.
I was with him in the pub, actually, on Saturday night.
They'd just won. They won on Saturday.
This guy come up to me and he was like, "I could beat you in arm wrestle."
- Oh, I saw that. - Really?
-"I could beat you in arm wrestle-" - But you beat him.
I said, "All right, if I beat you, you buy me a pint.
If I beat you I'll buy you a pint." [Kaleb's voice fading out]
[Jeremy's voice fading in] I know someone who married
his step-mother's sister,
which made it... I think it made him his own uncle.
Yeah, he became his own uncle.
[sipping and sighing]
[sighing]
- Finished? - Yeah.
Let's roll a fag.
[both laughing]
[Jeremy] The next job was to set up the laser to get the right levels,
and then remove the pipe...
[Kaleb] No. Wow.
[Jeremy] ...so we could pack in the clay.
[Kaleb] Yeah.
[Jeremy] But before we could do that,
we had to reduce the water level in the pond.
The problem we've got...
That's the overflow pipe,
which you can just see there,
and it's obviously blocked because there's hardly anything coming out
at the other end down there.
If we can get that clear with some rods,
that will take a lot of the water,
which will reduce the amount of water going through the dam site.
[Jeremy] This meant Kaleb had to get into another gimp suit.
[Kaleb moaning]
- [Kaleb] That's deep. - It's just silty. It's all right.
- [Kaleb] That's deep. - It's only seven feet of it.
[Kaleb panting]
I never thought I'd be doing sewage work.
- [Jeremy] I think that-- - [Kaleb] There it is.
Is it running faster?
[Jeremy] No. That's hardly made a difference.
It's still got a blockage in there, mate.
[groaning]
[Jeremy] We tried unblocking it from the other end.
[pumping]
But that didn't work either.
[Kaleb] No.
[Jeremy] So, there was only one thing we could do.
[exhaling]
What if we squirted a fire extinguisher down it?
That wouldn't work, would it?
It would massively increase the pressure, wouldn't it?
Yeah, but I don't think it would... A fire extinguisher?
Hey! You remember that pump I bought for irrigating...
The trout lake!
[Jeremy] Yeah, the trout lake.
You remember I bought that pump which was useless?
Well, it was too powerful.
- Yeah. - [Jeremy] If we squirted that down there,
that would blow anything out.
[Kaleb] Yeah.
See, if you just take a moment over a cup of tea.
We've had about 18 today.
[engine sputtering]
[Kaleb] Wow.
[Kaleb chuckles]
- [Kaleb screams] - [Jeremy] Get it in there.
- Fucking hell! - [Jeremy] Good.
[engine stops]
[Kaleb laughs]
[Jeremy] Shit.
[Kaleb] Take that end off, let the air go out that end,
then I might be able to take it back out again.
- Why don't I just do the little...? - [Kaleb] The little nut at the top.
- Oh! Fucking hell! - [Kaleb laughs]
[Kaleb] Let's try again.
[engine roaring]
No! [gasps]
[spitting]
[Kaleb grunting]
[spitting]
I can't do it.
[engine stops]
[Jeremy] Well, there's nothing I can think we can do.
[Kaleb] Yeah, I know.
Right. So what we've achieved today is...
nothing.
Get me out of these things.
No. Wait. We've gone backwards.
We've taken the big black pipe out of the trench
and then left it there.
[Kaleb] What's the time?
Five? Five-thirty?
[Kaleb] Christ. Construction and we're still working?
[Jeremy] That's a good point.
We should have been finished three hours ago.
[Jeremy chuckles] Let's go.
[tense music]
[Jeremy] The next day,
Kaleb and I became farmers again
and went for a crop walk
in one of the barley fields.
[Jeremy] All this...
- [Kaleb] Yeah? - Will be lager.
[Kaleb] Looks good this year, dunnit?
[Jeremy] How many acres have we put in there of spring barley?
[Kaleb] Here? You'll probably get about 300 tonnes.
[Jeremy] So 300 tonnes of spring barley.
[Kaleb] How much does that make in terms of pints?
- [Jeremy] It's lots. - [Kaleb laughs]
- [Jeremy] Where's that come from? - [Kaleb] I have no idea.
But it doesn't wanna be there.
Wanna carry that one out?
If it hits the combine header...
[Jeremy] Yeah.
Our pet stones. Our pet rocks.
Mine's called Ronald.
[Kaleb] Mine's called Donald.
[Jeremy] Anyway.
- Ahem. - [Kaleb] What?
[Jeremy] Well you've missed again.
[Kaleb] It's a little bit thinner, admittedly, but...
[Jeremy] I thought after last year with "Kaleb's Crack"...
[Kaleb] Oh, come on!
There's about 60 pints
of Hawkstone lost.
You're no one to talk.
- [Jeremy] What? - You can't say this to me.
- [Jeremy] Really? Why? - Have you seen Louse?
- Not recently. - [Kaleb] I think we should go up there.
[tense music]
[Jeremy] All right. You are free, stone.
[Jeremy] Kaleb then took me to Louse,
the field where I'd planted my mustard...
and let rip.
[Kaleb] So, look, you started drilling here.
That's where we started, yeah? Lovely lines.
You can see the mustard coming up.
- [Jeremy] Yeah. - And then you come along.
Fucking great miss.
But don't worry about it. Just keep coming.
Beautiful lines there, look.
Oh, look, another miss.
And then: "Oh, fucking hell, I may as well just miss this bit as well.
What's the point of drilling that?"
[Jeremy] It's those bloody arms that come out.
An earwig would leave a more noticeable trace if it walked across the field.
I knew when I was doing it.
But I thought I was going over everything twice
rather than missing bits.
[Kaleb] Well, you fucked up.
[upbeat music]
[Jeremy] Happily, my soup enterprise
was proving to be more successful.
Lucca had rounded up some youths to pick the nettles,
cooked up a big batch,
and dealt with Charlie's best before date issues.
But then, when I sat down to finally work out the pricing,
everything went a bit wrong.
[Jeremy mumbles]
Oh, God. This is...
Jesus.
[Jeremy] I headed up to the shop
knowing that I had to go on a charm offensive with Lisa.
- [Lisa] Hello! - Look what I have brought!
- Woodland Juice! - Oh, my God.
- Chilled nettle soup. - Oh wow.
Woodland Juice. I love the name.
Yes, Woodland Juice. Chilled and delicious.
Wow.
[Jeremy] Yeah. The only slight problem with that
is that you have got to convince the customers
to put nettles in their mouths
and pay
£10 for the privilege of doing it.
[Lisa] Why £10?
£10.
[Lisa] Why?
I've done the maths.
Wouldn't you do the maths before you make--
I did do the maths before.
But, to harvest them,
- we had to get kids. - Yeah?
[Jeremy] They worked for eight hours,
picking the nettles, pulling the top leaves off and then washing them.
And they only produced enough for 80 pots.
So you thought kids worked for free?
I didn't think I was gonna have to use kids. I thought I was going
to be able to do it using the machine, but that doesn't work.
You're gonna have to take a loss on that.
I'm not taking a loss!
Well, then they won't sell at all. So work it out.
And there's another problem.
- [Lisa] I can see the date. - Yes.
You've got a three-day shelf life.
And the production day counts as day one, which was yesterday.
So today's day two.
And they must be sold by the end of play tomorrow.
Well, you know we're closed today.
- [Jeremy] What? - Stock.
Stock count. You know I do stock on Wednesdays.
Well, this is my stock take. Look. I'm doing all my stock.
Yes, I know. But I've got eighty of these to sell.
Well, you'd better stand on the road then.
[Jeremy] Try selling it for £10.
No. It won't sell for £10.
[Jeremy] Well, do it for £9.99.
I can give them as an offer.
No, don't. Please? Try?
[tense music]
[Jeremy] I drove away feeling like one of those Apprentice candidates
that get fired in week one.
And the next day, when the shop reopened,
the nettle soup best-before-date countdown began.
[music continues]
It's nettle soup, for £9.99.
Are you serious?
[music continues]
[Jeremy] At closing time, Lisa was not happy.
It's ridiculous. I can't do anything with these.
And he doesn't plan in advance.
He gives me no warning.
He just brings me these soups with his eejit face on them,
charges a tenner, and says: "Sell them."
And it's not fair. It's stupid. It kind of makes the shop look stupid
that he's selling these for a tenner in order for him...
[Lisa's voice fading out]
[tense music]
[Jeremy] With my nettle soup causing
so much aggravation on both the economic and domestic front,
I decided to abandon it
and concentrate on the mushrooms.
Alan had brought power to the bunker,
installed all the necessary equipment...
And look at this. Health and safety. Very unusual.
- [Jeremy] What is it? - It's to hold the roof up.
- It's a roll cage. - Yeah, right!
[Jeremy] And once Walter White had finished disinfecting everything,
we were ready to take delivery of the first batch.
Are you the mushroom fellows?
[Oscar] We are the mushroom men.
[Alan] Oh, my God, Jeremy.
- [Jeremy] Holy cow. - [Alan] Holy Moses.
[Oscar] You've got just a couple of bags there for you.
[Jeremy] So, how many different types of mushroom?
[Rafe] Three different types of mushroom.
- [Jeremy] Which are? - You've got grey oysters,
speckled chestnuts, lion's mane.
- [Jeremy] What? - It makes a good steak.
[Jeremy] With lion's mane?
- [Oscar] Yeah. Slice it-- - Cows make a good steak.
So do mushrooms. Yeah.
What's he on about? Steak mushroom?
- Yeah! - [Alan] Ridiculous.
- [Rafe laughs] - [Jeremy] What's actually in these bags?
[Rafe] It's kind of a combination of whatever we've got
that's available to us locally.
So we go round local sawmills,
anyone that produces anything that has a waste organic matter,
we will go round and collect it.
How do mushrooms know to grow in it?
Or do they just grow in anything that's organic?
I mean, they pretty much would grow in anything organic.
Like the oyster you could grow off fabric.
- People grow off hats, clothes, shoes. - Hats?
Anything.
- You get very small yields. - [Rafe] Yeah.
- [Jeremy] Hats? - Yeah.
[Jeremy] Okay, well, look. Let's get them in, shall we?
[Rafe] Yeah.
[groaning]
[upbeat music]
[Jeremy] There's more.
- A lot more. - [Alan] Fucking hell.
I ain't taking the piss: we ain't gonna get that lot in there, are we?
I think I've overbought.
[upbeat music continues]
I've definitely overbought.
[Alan] Jesus.
You're gonna have more mushrooms than Sainsbury's, I'm telling you.
- Look. - [Jeremy] Stop moaning!
[Jeremy] As we filled the shelves,
I was sucked into a truly extraordinary biology lesson.
[Rafe] The mushroom is just the sexual reproductive organ of mycelium.
I don't know what that word is you keep using.
Mycelium.
[Rafe] The mycelium is the organism.
The mushroom is the sexual reproductive organ.
The sexual reproductive organ of the mycelium is the mushroom?
- Yeah. - [Jeremy] So a mushroom is a penis?
A mushroom is a penis. Its whole objective in life is to fruit,
release as many spores as possible and then die.
So when I see a vegan eating a mushroom,
you can go: "You're actually eating a meaty penis"?
"Get that penis out your mouth." Yeah! You absolutely can!
[Jeremy] What does a mycelium look like?
[Rafe] It's an organism.
- It's an organism? So, like me? - [Rafe] Like us. Exactly.
In fact, we are very, very closely related to mycelium.
More so than anything else on this planet.
- What? - [Rafe] Yeah.
As humans we still have a layer of mycelium across our body.
What-- You could grow mushrooms on me?
[Rafe] We could definitely grow mushrooms on you.
We'd have to kill you first,
- but we could grow mushrooms off you. - But you could?
[Jeremy] As we sanitised the front of the bags,
my biology lesson got even weirder.
[Jeremy] But mycelium is...
Where is it on the DNA?
Is it like dinosaurs or like us?
[Rafe] There's different theories for everything.
One of the leading ones is it actually comes from space.
That's what they believe. They've found
mycelial-like structures on asteroids
and bits of debris from space.
Well, that means mushrooms are space penises.
[Rafe] Yeah.
That's how I'm gonna sell them in the shop.
-"Jeremy's Special Space Penises." - [Rafe laughs]
[Rafe] Won't even label them as a mushroom! Just...
"Space Penises."
[Jeremy] Having made cuts in the bags for the space penises to grow through,
we switched on the humidifier
and let the magic commence.
- [Rafe] That's a good job. It looks good. - [Jeremy] Right.
[tense music]
[Jeremy] I left the bunker pleased that the mushroom men
were happy with my setup.
And the next day, I set about building a pen
for some new Diddly Squat arrivals.
[Jeremy] They're like a week old. They're a week old.
[Lisa] Oh!
[Jeremy] I was very much looking forward to this event.
Kaleb, though,
less so.
Look at the shed space it's using.
- [Jeremy] What? - Look at the shed space it's using.
Listen, Kaleb. Let me just try and explain something to you.
[Kaleb] Go.
The subsidies are going.
Yes. I'm aware of that.
[Jeremy] They're going to be replaced with environmental subsidies.
Yeah.
Things like using goats to create more farmland.
I've seen these subsidies, yeah? And I've not seen goats on that list.
I'll bet you any money I'll get a grant for the goats.
Because I am going to be using goats
to do what a machine would normally do,
which will count as environmental farming.
[Jeremy] Bottom line: I needed to clear as many brambles as possible
from my unfarmed land.
And annoyingly,
there were many areas that WALL-E, my beloved robo-mulcher,
couldn't reach.
I mean, that's the thickest brambles on the whole farm,
and there's no way I can get in over there.
[Jeremy] So, I had had the genius idea
of buying goats to do the job,
which Kaleb thought was a complete waste of money.
[Jeremy] Do you know how much these thirty goats were?
- [Kaleb] How much? - A tenner each?
£300. A tenner each.
£10.
[Kaleb] They should be giving you for free.
It's a tenner!
To make any money, you should be having them for free.
I'll tell you what. I can make money out of them.
Do a little petting place up at the shop.
- A tenner to spend 15 minutes with them. - Talk about bloody hobby farming!
- Dear God! - [Lisa] I'd make money, though.
- It's a thousand-acre farm! You want-- - [Jeremy] No, it's not.
Your bit is only 500 acres.
My bit is 500 acres.
And about 490 of them are covered in brambles.
Put the goats in the brambles, we create more farmland.
- I can't get the machine. - [Kaleb] Use that machine. You love it.
I showed you, you can't get--
I'll lift it in there for you with the telehandler.
The telehandler--
It's a bit late now. The goats are coming.
Just shush, the both of you.
[Jeremy] We've got to get this working.
They're just on milk at the moment.
- [Lisa] How many, er, goats? - [Jeremy] Thirty.
They have to be trained to use this.
- [Lisa] Survival of the fittest. - How do you teach a goat to use an app
- or that computer program? - [Kaleb] That's for you.
You just... So you put the milk powder in the top.
[Lisa] That's the milk powder.
[Kaleb] Do you know how much that is a bag?
[Lisa] Oh, God. How much is a bag?
- Have a guess how much is a bag. - [Lisa] 40 quid? 50 quid?
- No, it isn't? - [Lisa] 60 quid?
- [Lisa] 80 quid? - 70.
- 70 quid? - That's 70 quid?
[Kaleb] Well...
And you're telling me
- you're gonna make money? - It's expensive kit.
I'm creating land.
[soft music]
[Jeremy] Just as we finished getting everything ready...
[Jeremy] Goats!
[Jeremy] ...Lizzie, the goat lady, arrived.
[Lizzie] Good morning!
So, thirty goats. Kids. Just for you.
So we're this side, we're this side. Jockey door.
[Jeremy] Oh, my God. Look at them.
[bleating]
[Jeremy] Before we could unload, though,
Lizzie had to set the milking machine up.
[Lizzie] Yeah, so you've gotta push the teats through.
- That side. Yeah. One red... - [Jeremy] And then--
- [Lisa] And then put it in, yeah. - [Lizzie] And then one white.
[Lizzie] And then you'll do the same on that side and the same over there.
Right. That's that.
[Lizzie] Can you put that one on? That's perfect.
And then you just need to put your bag of milk powder in the top.
[Jeremy] £70 a bag of milk powder.
[Lizzie] It is like liquid gold.
You will be very protective of your milk powder.
[Lisa] Go on there now.
What it does is it releases a certain amount of milk powder
- to a certain amount of warm water. - [Lisa] And so it's demand and supply?
[Lizzie] Yeah. And it's ad lib.
And as soon as it gets to a certain point, it automatically refills.
And there's a pump in there as well, obviously?
No, no pump.
- So it's just them sucking? - Yeah. And it's gravity.
Well, they're gonna have to be Linda Lovelace to suck it that far.
[Lizzie chuckles]
[Lisa] And how long will one bag last us?
With thirty kids at this age, you're gonna be at least a day.
- They won't drink, you know, too much. - A day?
A day? I thought you were gonna say 3 weeks.
- That would be wishful thinking. - A day?
- We normally-- - [Jeremy] £70 a day?
Can I ask you a really big favour? Don't tell Kaleb.
It's a need-to-know basis.
[Jeremy] With all the housekeeping done,
it was now time for the good bit.
Hello, goats!
- [Lisa] Those are big ones. - Welcome to Diddly Squat.
- There we go. - [Jeremy] How old are they?
- [Lizzie] Two weeks old. - [Jeremy] Two weeks?
[soft orchestral music]
[Lisa] You are stunning.
[bleating]
Ready? Look at your new house!
[bleating continues]
Have they been castrated?
[Lizzie] They have been castrated, yeah.
It's just brilliant being an animal.
"Oh, you're a man? We'll have your bollocks off."
"But I might need them?" "No, you won't."
- [Lisa] Last two, right? - [Lizzie] There you go.
[Jeremy] Right. Look at them.
They're adorable. And this lot are eating.
[Lizzie] Yeah. So that's what you want. They're up, they're drinking.
[Lisa] And it's not survival of the fittest?
No, no. They know what they're doing. They all know how to drink.
How can we stop them drinking as much as they are drinking?
'Cause it's incredibly expensive.
[bleating]
[Jeremy] Observe. Come on!
That's a good sign. They're drinking already.
Yeah.
[Lisa] Do you know how much they drink, Kaleb?
[Jeremy] No, for C-- What are you--
Why are you telling him that?
[Lisa] K, how many bags a week do you think we're gonna get through?
[Kaleb] I dunno. Two bags a week?
Seven...
a week.
[Jeremy] So they're in here for two months.
[Lizzie] They normally say twelve weeks.
Ours normally, we normally start weaning them at ten weeks
if they get a good start.
So ten weeks and they'll eat brambles?
[Lizzie] They will eat pretty much anything.
But yeah, they will do some clearing for you if you'd like them to.
Definitely. That's what I want them for.
'Cause they can get to places that my amazing machine can't get to.
[Lizzie] There you go.
And they use less diesel.
- [bleating] - [Lisa] Oh you're so sweet.
Coming here for kisses?
Kisses.
[soft music]
[Jeremy] With the goats settled, we had to sex-split the weaners.
which, in English,
means separating the boy piglets from their sisters,
because they'd now reached, um...
that age.
The males go in here. So we've got the three-metre gap.
Then the lady ones go in here.
[Lisa] Yep.
[Jeremy] Sex-splitting.
- [Lisa] Sex-splitting happening? - No.
That went well.
[Lisa] You're literally just walking around after piglets.
[Jeremy] No, I'm getting them back up towards you to get them in a corner.
No, I've failed to get them in a corner.
Here they come.
There they go.
Come on, piggy.
Come on. No?
Come on, piggies.
Fucking hell!
[Lisa] Oh yes.
Oh yes.
Oh, my God.
[Jeremy] No, they've just gone down a narrow passageway
and they have escaped.
[Lisa laughs]
- [Lisa] I just don't-- - How does anyone sex-split a weaner?
[Jeremy] Eventually, Kaleb turned up
and showed us how it's done.
[Lisa] Oh!
- [squealing] - [Lisa] Oh, nice.
[Jeremy] That's it. Take that one round.
Kaleb?
Move in.
Oh, wow!
- [Lisa] Is that definitely a boy? - [Kaleb] Yep.
[squealing continues]
Right. Girl, girl, girl, girl, girl.
- Done. - [Lisa laughs]
[Jeremy] Back in March,
I'd said I didn't want to keep pigs anymore.
- [Jeremy] She's just sat on another one. - [Lisa] Oh, look.
[Jeremy] The piglet deaths had been...
too traumatic.
[soft country music]
[Jeremy] But instead,
I decided to think of a way of keeping more piglets alive.
And then, I rehired Ajax the boar...
Hello, pig.
You're back.
[Jeremy] ...to do his thing with the four remaining ladies.
- [Jeremy] Right. - [Lisa] This is lovely.
[Jeremy] So we just leave them to it for?
- [man] Four weeks. - Four weeks.
[Jeremy] I love them. They've been my favourite animals
that we've had on the farm by a long way.
[soft music]
[Jeremy] It had been a wonderful morning,
learning how to sex-split the mischievous weaners
and welcoming Ajax back.
And then, that afternoon, while out and about in the wildflower meadows,
the day got even better.
[Jeremy sighs]
[Jeremy] Hang on.
No way.
[laughing]
No! He's back!
Gerald's back!
I cannot believe it!
[laughs ecstatically]
Gerald!
You're back!
- You're back! - [Gerald] Hello, there.
Jeremy, you all right?
Lovely to see you, my man.
- How are we? - Well! I hope as well as you are.
- How are you? - [Gerald] Yeah, I'm getting there.
- [Jeremy] And you're straight back to it. - Yeah.
- [Gerald laughs] - Come on. Chapter and verse.
'Cause I know obviously you've been poorly.
But have you been having chemo or was it radio?
Radio.
- [Jeremy] Okay. Was that all right? - Yeah. 37 times I had to go.
37?
Yeah.
You've got the all-clear? That's the main thing.
Well, you haven't got the all-clear yet.
But, you know, touch wood.
I can't even get my head round it.
So what was it... Did you have a catheter, then, for--?
[Gerald] Yeah.
[Gerald speaking indistinctly] ...that keeps going.
You gotta do it yourself. I calls them pints...
[Gerald speaking indistinctly]
So the thing's here, so you've got that big round mushroom.
When that's whizzling round, now, you've gotta...
It's got a tea pot in or something like that.
And then a pad for like, you know,
like the dark ones that was there one day.
Doink, doink, doink, doink, doink, doink, doink.
This is the best description of cancer treatment I've ever heard I think!
- Yeah! - [both laughing]
You've no idea how much we've all missed you.
It must be nice to be back on a day like today.
Yeah, it is.
It's nice being back to see all my friends.
Yeah.
So that's why...
It's like mowing grass with a mower, isn't it?
You can't go... [Gerald speaking indistinctly]
... with the programme and everything.
Er, well, you can't.
But, you know.
Well, I just think... You know, with... Well, I don't know...
Yeah. But--
No, no, no. That's right.
It's like a nozzle on the end of a watering can.
["What Makes A Good Man?" By The Glorious Dead]
[Jeremy] A lot of the time, farming is brutal and hard.
♪ Ain't nothin' wrong with this chemistry ♪
[Jeremy] But at this time of year when everything is vivid,
and growing, and bursting with life
and everyone is well...
[tractor honking]
It can be the best job in the world.
♪ Is another one meant for me ♪
♪ To tell me now ♪
♪ And show me how ♪
♪ To understand ♪
♪ What makes a good man? ♪
♪ Tell me now... ♪
[Jeremy] On the surface, then,
Diddly Squat was a green and happy place
as we headed into summer.
But underground,
an alien life form was gathering an army.
[tense music]
[upbeat music]
Can I interest you in the new Diddly Squat range?
You're selling space penises?
I cannot tell you how good they are.
[man] 6.1 kilos.
[Kaleb] Ready?
- Kaleb! How are you? - How are you?
I'm very well, thanks.
[upbeat music]