Clarksons Farm - Season 3 Episode 05- Healing
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TVTranscript
00:00 [Music]
00:20 [Music]
00:28 It was now early April.
00:31 And after the misery of all the pig deaths, the arrival of spring gave everyone a much needed lift.
00:42 Look at it, it's lovely.
00:53 [Music]
01:01 We could also now get back to the business of planting and growing and making food.
01:07 So I fired up the Lambo because I'd had another farm in the un-farmed brainwave.
01:15 [Music]
01:27 All over the farm there are splodges of land like this, an acre here, two acres there and so on,
01:32 which over the years I've used to grow maize mostly, which is great for the songbirds.
01:37 It's good food for them and it's somewhere for them to hide.
01:41 It's also been quite useful for the pheasants that I rear to shoot at Christmas time, but we'll gloss over that.
01:47 But instead of maize, what I'm going to plant in here is mustard.
01:55 Still great for the songbirds, they love eating it, they love hiding in it.
02:00 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.
02:09 [Music]
02:11 By my maths, this one little patch here is going to generate 40,000 jars of mustard.
02:18 [Music]
02:21 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.
02:29 [Music]
02:32 Meanwhile, Caleb was busy in one of the other fields.
02:36 As the soil was finally dry enough for him to plant his Durham wheat.
02:42 So winter wheat is roughly about 340 pounds a tonne at the moment, which is basically your breads and your doughs, etc.
02:51 But this wheat is a spring crop and it's basically your pastas and it's worth about 500 pounds a tonne.
02:57 So there's a massive difference between the two.
02:59 [Music]
03:03 I think I'm about a month late because of that March rain. It just never stopped raining.
03:08 I'm hoping, fingers crossed, that it doesn't affect the yields and it'll be fine.
03:14 This is fun, isn't it? Some tractor driving again.
03:17 Yeah, I know, I like it.
03:19 [Engine noise]
03:22 And up she goes.
03:25 And down she goes.
03:30 Just remembering my first ever attempts at cultivating, what, four years ago?
03:35 [Groans]
03:38 Now look at me.
03:41 I'm learning.
03:44 [Music]
03:47 The next day though, when I returned to plant the mustard seeds.
03:52 Right, I'm drilling mustard.
03:55 That is what I'm doing.
03:58 I came up against my number one irritation.
04:03 Oh shit.
04:06 Absolutely no way I can see my marker.
04:10 Well how the bloody hell am I supposed to...
04:14 I've explained this a million times before, but this little metal beetle that I'm dragging along here
04:23 is three metres to the left of the tractor.
04:26 When I turn around and come back, if I keep the mark it's making centred on my bonnet,
04:32 I know I'm three metres away from the bit I've already done.
04:36 Problem is, it's not leaving a mark, not really.
04:41 I'm just guessing where I've planted, I've absolutely no idea.
04:48 [Music]
04:51 It was all very tricky and annoying.
04:54 But, at least time in the tractor did give me headspace to dream up new ways of farming the unfarmed.
05:02 And soon I had a brainwave which I was keen to share with Charlie.
05:09 Mushrooms.
05:12 Mushrooms?
05:14 Mushrooms.
05:16 Okay, good.
05:18 Why? We've got quite a lot going on.
05:22 Yes, we have got quite a lot going on. This is incredibly easy.
05:26 I've been looking into this, I've done a business plan.
05:29 You've done a business plan?
05:31 You get 200 blocks of bags, okay?
05:34 Grey bags?
05:36 Basically, yes.
05:38 And the first time they grow, in two weeks, we will have 1.2 kilograms of mushrooms.
05:44 Yep.
05:46 And they can sell for £24 per kilogram, if they're grey oysters.
05:52 And then the first flush, the profit...
05:56 And the first flush, what's a flush?
05:58 Two weeks.
05:59 Two weeks, so first growing period.
06:01 The first growing period, two weeks.
06:03 £3,620.
06:06 Okay. That's impressive.
06:09 It is impressive.
06:11 It's almost too impressive.
06:13 It's the cost of the bags, to buy the grey bags.
06:16 It's got the mushroom spores, I suppose, in already.
06:20 The second time they flush...
06:22 So you get more than one harvest.
06:24 The second time they flush, you get only 350 grams per bag.
06:29 So it goes down from 1.2 to 350 grams, but you don't have to buy the bag again.
06:35 So the profit drops from £3,620 to £2,135.
06:39 Okay.
06:41 It's still pretty good.
06:43 So that's £5,700.
06:45 And then you get a third flush, again, £2,100.
06:49 Then you're done. Your bags are done.
06:52 And you replace them with 200 more bags, blocks.
06:56 Okay, so about £8,000.
06:58 Yeah.
06:59 So do you need power?
07:00 You do, just a tiny bit for a little heater.
07:03 You might not need very much, but cable's quite a lot of money.
07:06 Yes.
07:08 And who's going to do... Are you going to pick them?
07:10 Where are you selling them?
07:11 In the shop.
07:12 You say there's a profit of £8,000.
07:14 Yes, wooden shelving. I'm going to get out.
07:16 Oh, here we go. There are more costs.
07:17 Well, of course there are costs.
07:19 A fogger fan, £40.
07:21 Extraction fan for hats, £100.
07:23 Grow room lights, £60.
07:26 Ultrasonic fogger, £160.
07:28 Water hoover for cleaning, £95.
07:30 Total, £455.
07:32 Which is brilliant, but they all run on electricity, which you haven't got there.
07:36 But I actually quite like this idea.
07:39 You do? I think it's quite good.
07:41 You look at my workings out.
07:42 I'm not going to check your workings. I'm not a maths teacher.
07:46 I just... I'm just getting a bit better now at planning the costs of things
07:51 before I do something, rather than working out afterwards.
07:55 Mushroom meeting over.
07:58 Charlie then insisted we register the piglet births
08:01 with the government's pig police.
08:04 And this meant deploying the entire Diddley Squat Mathematics team.
08:09 How many piglets died in the end?
08:13 Two from the first one.
08:15 Three from the first one.
08:16 Three from the first one.
08:17 No, she gave birth to ten.
08:18 Five. Five.
08:19 Second sow down here had ten, sat on two.
08:22 But there are only seven remaining.
08:24 You said she had eight.
08:26 Yeah, I counted eight the other day.
08:28 We're never going to get this done.
08:31 We've now been an hour and we've registered one, two.
08:35 Yeah.
08:37 Sadly, I had to leave the maths class early
08:41 because I'd arranged to show Alan the Builder
08:44 the site I'd earmarked for my mushroom operation.
08:48 Right, so, mushroom production.
08:53 There was this place, which you can't even see.
08:56 I think this is the old pumping house for the farm.
08:59 Yes. 150 years ago.
09:01 Victorian pumping station, yeah. Good God.
09:04 Easy repair job for you.
09:06 Not a prayer.
09:08 And the perfect mushroom-growing facility.
09:11 It's dangerous. What do you mean, no?
09:13 It's dangerous. What's dangerous?
09:15 Fucking lot of fall down on somebody.
09:17 It won't. Go and jump on it.
09:19 That old barrel-to-harch, look, they've put soil on the top.
09:22 Anybody puts any weight on there, that'll just collapse.
09:24 Yeah, we can't do that.
09:25 Are you familiar with Brunel's Maidenhead Bridge?
09:29 Who? No, mate, look, it's rotten. Look.
09:32 Look at you. Don't pull things over.
09:35 No, but it's going to fall over very shortly, isn't it?
09:37 It's going to be in this stream.
09:39 Look at all those arches in cathedrals from the 12th century.
09:42 All this shit everywhere in our way.
09:44 Don't get me wrong, I can do it. Yeah.
09:46 It's just going to cost an absolute fortune.
09:48 I've never heard so many negative waves.
09:50 Fucking hell, we'll be growing mushrooms the rest of our lives
09:53 and still make no money.
09:55 All right, come on, then. Sorry, boss.
09:57 I then took him to a backup site,
10:01 an underground bunker at the top end of the farm,
10:04 on land which had once been an airfield.
10:07 I think it's an air-raid shelter, personally.
10:11 It was an American bomber base in the Second World War.
10:14 Yeah. We'll see.
10:16 What I'm saying is... But this is now going to be a mushroom facility.
10:19 But look at you. The problem is, our security needs beefing up.
10:22 I'm going to put a site... Yes, quite.
10:24 He's getting better. Yeah, he is.
10:26 Cos he's having radiotherapy, is he? Yeah, he is.
10:28 We need some light.
10:30 Is that concrete? Yes, it is concrete.
10:34 Yeah, you can see the bars there.
10:36 Yeah.
10:37 The septics will have overdone it.
10:39 It'll be concrete, be this thick. Yeah. They will have done.
10:42 I mean, it's obviously a lot bigger than the pumping house.
10:45 Easy access. Yeah. Don't need planning permission.
10:47 No. It's underground. No, it's already, yeah.
10:49 So, listen, this ain't big money, is it?
10:51 I don't know. No.
10:53 What's not big money?
10:55 Rough guess?
10:57 You always does this to me.
10:59 It's one of those things that it's kind of normal
11:04 to ask a builder how much something is likely to...
11:07 Yeah, but when he looked at it two minutes ago,
11:09 let's just say we could do it for less than £10,000.
11:11 Oh. Now, that's a bargain.
11:13 That would be good.
11:15 Yeah, honestly, we'd turn this round in a week, wouldn't we?
11:18 I've never heard builders...
11:20 Yeah, we'll have you up and running.
11:22 I can do it in a week and it'll be less than £10,000.
11:24 Nobody's ever heard this.
11:26 Listen, by the time I started work, you'd be able to advertise them down the shop.
11:29 That's how quick I'll be.
11:31 As Alan went off to get supplies,
11:35 I started work on another brainwave I'd had -
11:39 nettles.
11:41 The woods were literally carpeted with them.
11:46 And I decided they could be used to make soup.
11:50 All right, Luca. How's it going?
11:54 Luca is Diddly Squat's Swiss Army knife.
11:58 He's a racing driver, he works at the farm shop
12:02 and he comes from a famous Irish cooking dynasty.
12:06 Right, so, nettle soup.
12:10 Luca actually made some for me about... When was it, last year?
12:13 Yes. About the nicest thing I've ever put in my mouth.
12:17 It was stunning.
12:19 All the ingredients we need are here -
12:21 potatoes, onions we've got here.
12:23 What else do you need?
12:25 So, we've got nettles, we've got onions, we've got spuds,
12:28 salt, pepper, chicken stock, cream and butter.
12:32 And that's it? Yeah.
12:34 Once Luca had finished cooking,
12:39 he just needed someone with a sophisticated palate to taste it.
12:44 And you've never had nettle soup? I've never had nettle soup.
12:48 I mean, look at the colour of that.
12:50 The colour is unbelievable.
12:52 It's a good thick soup as well, so with some of our sourdough,
12:55 it'll go great.
12:57 Oh, Christ, that's good. Wow.
13:00 It's properly good, isn't it?
13:02 Mate, you can cook!
13:04 Wow.
13:06 The funny thing is, nobody knows what a nettle tastes like.
13:09 What does it taste like? But you know it's a nettle.
13:12 In the aftertaste, you should get a bit of a nettle kind of taste.
13:15 It's lovely.
13:17 You'd sell this at the shop.
13:19 I mean, that's the only thing that worries me about our board now.
13:23 If you make a lot of that...
13:25 We've got to get that in the shop.
13:28 That is going to be our next big thing.
13:31 Yeah. I'm going to spray more loss so you can't do it.
13:34 No, you're not.
13:36 With the tasting completed,
13:40 I borrowed some serious harvesting firepower
13:44 and headed off into the woods.
13:46 I found this, which is used for harvesting tea.
13:54 It's basically like a hedge clipper.
14:01 Yeah?
14:03 This is a fan that blows the leaves into the back.
14:08 And then, if an alien comes,
14:11 I can do a Sigourney Weaver on it.
14:14 Right.
14:18 Harvesting!
14:20 Oh, no.
14:28 What I've done is I've harvested my own collection sack.
14:32 That's plainly not supposed to have happened.
14:35 Oh, dear.
14:37 Oh, God, they hit me in the face.
14:40 Oh...
14:43 Right, I'm attached to a tree and my bag's stuck in the...
14:51 Oh, back in the...
14:53 Ow.
14:57 Bloody hell.
15:00 (SIGHS)
15:02 Oh, for fuck's sake.
15:06 I stuck at it until my ageing body could take no more.
15:16 Oh, my back. Ah!
15:19 And then I headed back to the farm with my loot.
15:24 Lovely. Hundreds and hundreds of them.
15:28 Where it turned out there was a problem.
15:31 Luca had said he only wanted young, sweet nettles.
15:36 But my machine hadn't got the memo.
15:40 I think it's harvested grass, blackberries, trees, buildings.
15:47 The best way to get nettles picked, if you want nettles picked,
15:50 is a few young lads out from the farm shop.
15:53 Do you think kids in the shop will go and pick nettles?
15:56 Yeah, definitely.
15:58 Pay them £8.50 an hour.
16:00 But that brings me on to the costings.
16:02 So, to make 200 jars, we've got to spend £38 on butter...
16:07 OK. ..£77 on cream.
16:10 Right. The nettles are free.
16:12 Well, they're...
16:14 But not if I have to start paying someone to go and pick them.
16:18 Potatoes, they're £6.40.
16:20 Stock, which we bought from the supermarket, £67.
16:24 And the containers are £120.
16:27 Labels will be £50.
16:29 Now, I reckon we can sell them for a fiver each.
16:31 Easily. You reckon? Oh, yeah, big time.
16:34 Sadly, before we had a chance to finish the calculations,
16:38 Mr Rules and Regulations arrived.
16:41 Hello.
16:42 To make his usual tiresome contribution.
16:45 Has he got his environmental health?
16:49 Luca? Yeah? Have you got your environmental health?
16:52 Certificate. Certificate. Yeah, yeah.
16:55 Ooh, that sounded like an 'R'.
16:57 That's almost like Lisa said, "Yes, yes."
17:00 Do they teach you in Ireland how to say, "Yeah, yeah,"
17:03 when you mean, "No"? Yeah, yeah.
17:05 I'm convinced in Ireland there's actual lessons.
17:08 When you go, "When someone asks you a question, the answer is no,
17:11 "say yes, but say it like this." Twice.
17:13 Say it twice. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
17:15 Have you actually got it?
17:17 Er, yeah, no, in... Back in the day, no.
17:20 Back in the day! There's a variation on a theme.
17:23 What goes in your nettle soup? Butter, cream?
17:26 Yeah, well, we're doing it in practice.
17:28 So you'll need to put a "Best Before" label on it? Yeah.
17:31 You haven't thought about that, have you? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, no.
17:34 Yeah, yeah. I'm learning.
17:36 Leaving Luca to get on with the soup operation,
17:42 I went off to the wild-farmed Wheaton bean field
17:46 to do chemistry with Andy Cato.
17:49 This is a Bricks test,
17:51 which is going to measure the amount of sugar
17:54 in whatever plant we test.
17:57 So what we're going to do is gather some leaves,
18:00 put them in a garlic crusher,
18:02 squeeze a bit of liquid onto that lens and see what it says.
18:05 You want to give it a whirl?
18:07 When I thought I'd be a farmer, I never thought,
18:10 "Oh, I need a garlic crusher for a shingle and a microscope."
18:14 Grab some leaves. You need more than you think.
18:19 Right.
18:21 Here we go.
18:23 Back at school now. Every day's a school day.
18:26 So have a look through there towards the sun,
18:29 and you should see a blue bit and a white bit.
18:32 Just above five, I'm going to say six. Six.
18:37 OK, at that level of Bricks means that the plants
18:40 haven't got all the nutrients they need.
18:42 So we'll do a sap test,
18:44 which is kind of like a blood test for a plant.
18:47 The point is obviously not to just go for the pretty ones,
18:50 just walk in a straight line and take what's in front of you.
18:53 I've got you.
18:55 All right. Perfect. I'll get these off to the lab.
18:58 When the tests came back,
19:03 I was away filming again for the grand tour.
19:06 So Charlie and Caleb had to discuss the results with Andy.
19:10 Test results show...
19:15 Reveal.
19:17 Um, blue's good, green's good, red is bad.
19:22 Magnesium. Magnesium.
19:24 So, to get the crop sort of, you know... Balanced out.
19:29 ..balanced out, we need to put some magnesium on there.
19:32 Luckily, we can put that on in a very simple form.
19:36 Epsom salts. Bath salts. Bath salts.
19:41 Literally. But, I mean, I thought we wasn't putting anything on this.
19:44 I thought we were just going to leave it.
19:46 No, no, no, we can't just leave it, because we can't just sort of hope
19:49 that the soil is at a point where it can provide the crop
19:51 with everything that it needs.
19:53 And when things are lacking, we use a natural nutritional product,
19:56 like bath salts in this case, to put it right. I see.
19:59 I'm not sure he did see,
20:03 judging by the amount of moaning he did while applying the bath salts.
20:08 My wheat looks better.
20:13 Why's it so patchy?
20:15 Really green and then, like...
20:17 I mean, Louis Finn there.
20:20 Moaning which carried on even after he'd finished.
20:24 Right.
20:26 I mean, he comes over, tells me, as a farmer, what to do,
20:30 you what to do. I don't go to his house and say,
20:32 "Look, he needs a guitar and a certain song."
20:34 I'm not sure he's telling us what to do.
20:36 I think he's giving us the background of his ideas
20:39 and how they want to grow stuff.
20:41 Does it annoy me?
20:43 Is that because it's a different way of doing things?
20:45 As a farmer, I don't like change.
20:47 I think every farmer don't like change.
20:49 I hate this field now.
20:51 When I came back from my filming trip,
20:56 I decided we should get on with the dam repairs.
21:00 And to stop the arguing this usually caused,
21:03 Caleb and I said we should transition.
21:06 Now, remember, when you put this on... Yeah.
21:09 ..we are construction workers. Right, not farmers. Exactly.
21:12 So I'm now perfectly safe.
21:14 Right, a cup of tea? Oh, a tea break? Yeah.
21:17 Ten o'clock, tea.
21:19 Right. Right, tea break, then what?
21:22 We roll a fag.
21:24 Then another tea break when we smoke the cigarette.
21:26 No, no, no, no. No, don't smoke the cigarette on your tea break.
21:29 You have your tea and then smoke it when you start work again.
21:32 So anyone in construction is going to be very angry with us
21:34 for saying this. I don't think so. I think they understand.
21:36 I think they know. They know exactly what they're doing.
21:39 Job one was to drop some clay off at the side of the dam.
21:45 Oh, God's truth.
21:48 Er... What?
21:56 What?
21:59 A little bit of clay went in there.
22:01 A little bit?
22:04 We'd better discuss that.
22:06 Over a cup of tea?
22:08 Who have we got tomorrow? Is it West Brom? No.
22:24 Is it Chelsea? No, Brentford.
22:26 You're going to lose that. Well, I know we are.
22:28 I think we could be relegated.
22:30 I think we're going to meet Rexham coming the other way.
22:33 You might as well join them, get in for the fame of old Ryan Reynolds.
22:36 I know we've got Chadlington now.
22:38 I was with them in the pub, actually, on Saturday night.
22:41 They'd just won. They won on Saturday.
22:43 This guy came up to me and he was like, "I reckon I could beat you in an arm wrestle."
22:46 I was like... Oh, I saw that. "Really?"
22:48 He went, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, I could beat you in an arm wrestle."
22:50 I said, "All right, if I beat you, you buy me a pint.
22:52 "If I beat you, I'll buy you a pint."
22:54 I know someone who married his stepmother's sister,
23:01 which made it... I think it made him his own uncle.
23:04 Yeah, he became his own uncle.
23:08 Finished? Yeah.
23:18 It's all a fag.
23:20 The next job was to set up the laser to get the right levels
23:26 and then remove the pipe...
23:28 Whoa! ..so we could pack in the clay.
23:31 Yeah.
23:33 But before we could do that,
23:35 we had to reduce the water level in the pond.
23:39 The problem we've got, that's the overflow pipe,
23:42 which you can just see there, and it's obviously blocked
23:45 because there's hardly anything coming out at the other end down there.
23:49 If we can get that clear with some rods,
23:52 that will take a lot of the water,
23:54 which will reduce the amount of water going through the dam site.
23:58 This meant Caleb had to get into another gimp suit.
24:03 Urgh! That's deep.
24:06 It's just siltsuits, all right? That's deep.
24:08 It's only seven feet of it. Whoa!
24:10 I never thought I'd be doing sewage work.
24:14 There it is. Is it running faster?
24:23 No, that's hardly made a difference.
24:25 It's still got a blockage in there, mate.
24:27 Urgh!
24:29 We tried unblocking it from the other end.
24:32 But that didn't work either.
24:39 No!
24:41 So there was only one thing we could do.
24:51 What if we squirted a fire extinguisher down it?
24:54 That wouldn't work, would it?
24:56 It could massively increase the pressure, wouldn't it?
24:58 Yeah, but I don't think it would work. A fire extinguisher?
25:01 Hey, you remember that pump I bought for irrigating...
25:05 Oh, the trout lake? Yeah, the trout lake.
25:07 You remember I bought that pump, which was useless?
25:10 Well, it was too powerful. Yeah, yeah.
25:12 If we squirted that down there, that would blow anything up.
25:15 Yeah.
25:17 See, if you'd just take a moment over a cup of tea...
25:22 We've had about 18 today.
25:24 Oh.
25:28 HE GIGGLES
25:30 Urgh! Get it in there!
25:36 Fucking hell! Good!
25:39 HE LAUGHS
25:44 Shit.
25:45 You're going to have to take that end off, let the air go up that end,
25:48 then I might be able to take it back out again.
25:50 Or do I just do the little... Yeah, the little nut at the top.
25:53 Oh, fucking hell!
25:55 Let's try again.
25:58 No!
26:02 HE GRUNTS
26:04 I can't do it!
26:14 Well, there's nothing I can do we can do.
26:17 Yeah, I know.
26:19 Right, so what we've achieved today is...
26:23 nothing.
26:25 Get me out of these things.
26:30 No, wait, we've gone backwards.
26:32 We've taken the big black pipe out of the trench...
26:37 and then left it there.
26:41 What's the time? Five, 5.30.
26:43 Christ, construction, we're still working.
26:45 I think that's a good point.
26:47 Should we finish three hours ago?
26:49 HE CHUCKLES Let's go.
26:51 The next day, Caleb and I became farmers again
26:58 and went for a crop walk in one of the barley fields.
27:02 All this... Yeah? ..will be lager.
27:07 Looks good this year, doesn't it?
27:09 I mean, how many acres have we put in of spring barley?
27:12 Well, here, we'll probably get about 300 tonnes.
27:14 So, 300 tonnes of spring barley.
27:16 How much does that make in terms of points?
27:18 It's lots.
27:19 See, where's that come from?
27:21 I have no idea.
27:22 It doesn't want to be there. No.
27:24 I'm going to carry that one out.
27:26 If it hits a combine header.
27:28 Our pet stones, our pet rocks.
27:32 Mine's called Ronald.
27:34 Mine's called Donald.
27:36 Anyway...
27:38 HE CLEARS THROAT
27:39 What?
27:40 Well, you've missed again.
27:43 It's a little bit thinner, admittedly, but...
27:45 I thought after last year, with Caleb's crack...
27:48 Oh, come on!
27:49 ..there's about 60 pints of hawkstone lost.
27:53 You... You're no one to talk.
27:56 What? You can't say this to me.
27:59 Have you seen... Have you seen Laos?
28:01 Not recently. I think we should go up there.
28:05 All right, you're a free stone.
28:08 Caleb then took me to Laos,
28:11 the field where I'd planted my mustard.
28:14 And let rip.
28:16 So, look, you started drilling here.
28:18 Yeah. That's where we started, yeah? Lovely lines.
28:20 You see the... You can see the...
28:22 You know, the mustard coming up. Yeah.
28:24 And then you come along...
28:26 Fucking great miss.
28:28 But don't worry about it, just keep coming.
28:31 Beautiful lines there, look.
28:33 Oh, look, another miss.
28:35 And then... Oh, fucking hell,
28:37 I may have just missed this bit as well.
28:39 Crossed the point of drilling that.
28:41 It's those bloody arms that come out.
28:43 Honestly, an earwig would leave a more noticeable trace
28:46 if it walked across the field.
28:48 I knew when I was doing it,
28:50 but I thought I was going over everything twice
28:52 rather than missing bits.
28:54 Well, you fucked up.
29:02 Happily, my soup enterprise was proving to be more successful.
29:07 Luca had rounded up some youths to pick the nettles,
29:11 cooked up a big batch
29:14 and dealt with Charlie's best-before-date issues.
29:18 But then, when I sat down to finally work out the pricing,
29:23 everything went a bit wrong.
29:25 1-4-8, no, 1-4-6...
29:29 1-4-6...
29:31 Oh, God, this is...
29:37 Jesus!
29:42 I headed up to the shop,
29:44 knowing that I had to go on a charm offensive with Lisa.
29:48 Hello! Look what I have brought.
29:52 Woodland juice. Oh, my God.
29:54 Chilled nettle soup.
29:56 Oh, wow.
29:58 Woodland juice. I love the name.
30:00 Yes, woodland juice. Chilled and delicious.
30:03 Wow. Yeah.
30:05 The only slight problem with that
30:07 is that you have got to convince the customers
30:11 to put nettles in their mouths
30:13 and pay ten pounds for the privilege of doing it.
30:17 Why ten?
30:19 Ten pounds. Why?
30:21 I've done the maths.
30:23 You did the maths before? I did do the maths before.
30:26 But to harvest them, we had to get kids.
30:30 Yeah. They worked for eight hours... Yeah.
30:33 ..picking the nettles, pulling the top leaves off
30:36 and then washing them, and only produced enough for 80 pots.
30:40 So you thought kids worked for free?
30:42 I didn't think I was going to have to use kids.
30:44 I thought I was going to be able to do it using a machine,
30:47 but that doesn't work.
30:48 You're going to have to take a loss on that.
30:50 I'm not taking a loss.
30:51 Well, then they won't sell at all, so work it out.
30:54 There's another problem.
30:56 I can see the date.
30:58 Yes. You've got a three-day shelf life
31:00 and the production day counts as day one, which was yesterday,
31:04 so today is day two
31:06 and they must be sold by the end of play tomorrow.
31:09 Well, you know we're closed today. What?
31:11 Stock. Stock out.
31:13 You know I do stock on Wednesdays.
31:15 This is my stock check. Look, I'm doing all my stock.
31:19 Yes, I know, but we've got 80 of these to sell.
31:22 I'll sell them on the road, then.
31:24 Try selling it for £10.
31:26 No, it won't sell for £10.
31:28 Well, do it for £9.99.
31:29 I can give them as an offer.
31:31 No, don't. Please try.
31:33 I drove away feeling like one of those apprentice candidates
31:42 that get fired in week one.
31:44 And the next day, when the shop reopened,
31:49 the best before-date countdown began.
31:52 This is nettle soup for £9.99.
32:13 Are you serious?
32:17 At closing time, Lisa was not happy.
32:20 I mean, it's just ridiculous. I can't do anything with these.
32:25 And he doesn't plan in advance.
32:27 He gives me no warning.
32:29 He just brings me these soups with his eejit face on them,
32:33 charges a tenner and says, "Sell them."
32:36 And it's not fair. It's stupid.
32:38 It kind of makes the shop look stupid that he's selling these for a tenner
32:41 in order for him to make...
32:46 With my nettle soup causing so much aggravation
32:49 on both the economic and domestic front,
32:53 I decided to abandon it and concentrate on the mushrooms.
32:58 Alan had brought power to the bunker,
33:05 installed all the necessary equipment...
33:08 And look at this. Health and safety, very unusual.
33:11 What is it?
33:14 It's to hold the roof up. Is it a roll cage? Yeah.
33:17 And once Walter White had finished disinfecting everything,
33:21 we were ready to take delivery of the first batch.
33:25 Are you the mushroom fellas?
33:30 We are the mushroom men.
33:32 Oh, my God, Jeremy. Holy cow.
33:37 Holy Moses. Sorry, boys.
33:39 Just a couple of bags there for you.
33:41 So how many different types of mushroom?
33:44 You've got three different types of mushroom. Which are?
33:47 You've got grey oysters, speckled chestnuts, lion's mane...
33:51 What? Makes a good steak. With lion's mane?
33:54 Yeah. Slice it. Cows make a good steak.
33:57 So do mushrooms, yeah.
33:59 What's he on about? Steak mushroom? Yeah. Ridiculous.
34:03 So we've got... What's actually in these bags?
34:06 It's kind of a combination of whatever we've got
34:09 that's available to us locally.
34:11 So we go round local sawmills.
34:13 Anyone that produces anything that has a waste organic matter,
34:16 we will go round and collect it.
34:18 How do mushrooms know to grow in it,
34:20 or do they just grow in anything that's organic?
34:22 I mean, they pretty much would grow in anything organic.
34:25 Like the oyster, you could grow off fabric,
34:27 people grow off hats, clothes, shoes, anything.
34:30 Hats? You get a very small yield. Yeah.
34:32 Hats? Yeah. OK, well, look, let's get them in, shall we?
34:35 Yeah.
34:37 HE SIGHS
34:38 There's more.
34:44 A lot more. Fucking hell.
34:49 I ain't taking a piss. We ain't going to get that line now, are we?
34:53 I think I'm overboard.
34:57 I'm definitely overboard.
35:05 Jesus.
35:06 I think we're going to have more mushrooms in Sainsbury's,
35:09 I'm telling you. Look. Stop moaning.
35:11 As we filled the shelves,
35:16 I was sucked into a truly extraordinary biology lesson.
35:21 The mushroom is just the sexual reproductive organ of mycelium.
35:25 I don't know what that word is you keep using. Mycelium.
35:28 The mycelium is the organism,
35:30 the mushroom is the sexual reproductive organ.
35:32 The sexual reproductive organ of the mycelium is the mushroom.
35:36 Yeah. So a mushroom is a penis.
35:39 A mushroom is a penis.
35:40 Its whole objective in life is to fruit,
35:43 release as many spores as possible and then die.
35:46 So when I see a vegan eating a mushroom, you can go...
35:50 You're actually eating a mutated penis.
35:52 Get that penis out of your mouth. Yeah.
35:55 You absolutely can. What does a mycelium look like?
35:58 It's an organism. It's an organism? Yeah.
36:01 So, like me? Like us, exactly.
36:05 In fact, we are very, very closely related to mycelium.
36:09 More so than anything else on this planet. What? Yeah.
36:13 As humans, we still have a layer of mycelium across our body.
36:17 Well, you could grow mushrooms on me.
36:20 We could definitely grow mushrooms on you.
36:22 We'd have to kill you first, but we could grow mushrooms off you.
36:25 Yeah.
36:26 As we sanitise the front of the bags,
36:29 my biology lesson got even weirder.
36:33 But mycelium is...
36:35 Where is it on the DNA? Is it like dinosaurs or like us?
36:40 There's different theories for everything.
36:42 One of the leading ones is it actually comes from space.
36:45 That's what they believe.
36:46 They found mycelial-like structures on asteroids
36:51 and bits of debris from space.
36:53 Well, that means mushrooms are space penises.
36:57 Yeah. I can't... I can't tell them to sell them in the shop.
37:00 Jeremy's special space penises.
37:02 We wouldn't even label them as a mushroom, just...
37:05 Space penises.
37:07 Having made cuts in the bags for the space penises to grow through,
37:13 we switched on the humidifier...
37:15 ..and let the magic commence.
37:19 It's a good job. Yeah, it looks good.
37:23 Right.
37:24 I left the bunker pleased that the mushroom men
37:28 were happy with my set-up.
37:30 And the next day, I set about building a pen...
37:35 ..for some new diddly-squat arrivals.
37:40 They're like a week old. They're a week old.
37:43 Oh!
37:44 I was very much looking forward to this event.
37:47 I was very much looking forward to this.
37:49 I was very much looking forward to this.
37:51 I was very much looking forward to this event.
37:54 Caleb, though, less so.
37:57 Look at the shed space it's using.
38:00 What? Look at the shed space it's using.
38:02 Listen, Caleb, let me just try and explain something to you.
38:05 Go.
38:06 The subsidies are going. Yes, I'm aware of that.
38:09 And they're going to be replaced with environmental subsidies.
38:12 Yeah.
38:13 Things like using goats to create more farmland.
38:17 I've seen these subsidies, yeah,
38:19 and I'm not seeing goats on that list.
38:21 I'll bet you any money I'll get a grant for the goats.
38:24 Because...
38:25 Because I am going to be using goats to do
38:28 what a machine would normally do,
38:30 which will count as environmental farming.
38:33 Bottom line, I needed to clear as many brambles as possible
38:39 from my unfarmed land.
38:41 And annoyingly, there were many areas that Wally,
38:46 my beloved robo-mulcher, couldn't reach.
38:50 I mean, that is beyond...
38:53 That's the thickest brambles on the whole farm,
38:55 and there's no way I can get him over there.
38:59 So I'd had the genius idea of buying goats to do the job,
39:05 which Caleb thought was a complete waste of money.
39:09 Do you know how much these 30 goats were?
39:13 How much? Tenner each?
39:14 £300. They're a tenner each. Yeah.
39:16 £10. That's not... They should be giving you for free.
39:19 That's a tenner! To make any money,
39:21 to make any money, you should be having them for free.
39:23 I tell you what, I can make money out of them,
39:25 do a little petting place up at the shop, tenner.
39:27 Oh, dear God. Tenner to spend...
39:29 But we're bloody hobby farming!
39:31 I make money, though. It's a thousand-acre farm.
39:33 If you want to go 20-acre hobby farming... No, it's not.
39:36 Your bit is only 500 acres.
39:38 My bit is 500 acres, and about 490 of them are covered in brambles.
39:42 Put the goats in the brambles, we create more farmland.
39:46 And I can't get my... Have that machine!
39:48 You love it! I can't get the machine! I showed you!
39:50 I'll lift it in there for you with the telehandler.
39:52 The machine? You've got to get the telehandler in there.
39:54 It's a bit late now, the goats are coming.
39:56 Just shush, the both of you.
39:57 We've got to get this working.
39:59 They're just on milk at the moment.
40:01 How many goats? 30.
40:02 They have to be trained to use this.
40:04 That's going to be survival.
40:05 But how do you teach a goat to use an app or that computer pad?
40:08 No, no, no. That's for you.
40:10 You just... So you put the milk powder on the top.
40:13 That's the milk powder.
40:15 Do you know how much that is a bag?
40:17 Oh, God, how much is a bag?
40:18 Are you aware of how much that is a bag? Have a guess.
40:20 40 quid? 50 quid?
40:22 No. 60 quid?
40:24 80 quid? 70.
40:25 70 quid? That's 70 quid.
40:27 Whoa.
40:28 And you're telling me you're going to...
40:30 It's an expensive case. You're going to make money?
40:32 I'm creating land.
40:34 Just as we finish getting everything ready,
40:39 the goats.
40:41 Lizzie, the goat lady, arrived.
40:44 Good morning.
40:45 So, 30 goats.
40:47 Kids, just for you.
40:49 So, with this side, with this side, jockey door.
40:51 Oh, my God, look at them.
40:55 Before we could unload, though, Lizzie had to set the milking machine up.
41:03 Yeah, so you've got to push the teats through, that side, yeah.
41:06 One red and then one white.
41:08 And then you'll do the same on that side and the same over there.
41:11 Right, that's that.
41:12 And you've got that one on. That's perfect.
41:14 And then you just need to put your bag of milk powder in the top.
41:17 70-pound bag of milk powder?
41:19 It is like liquid gold.
41:21 You will be very protective of your milk powder.
41:24 Go on, Dernal.
41:26 What it does is it releases a certain amount of milk powder
41:29 to a certain amount of warm water.
41:31 And so it's demand and supply? Yeah.
41:33 And it's ad lib, and as soon as it gets to a certain point,
41:36 it automatically refills.
41:38 And there's a pump in there as well, obviously.
41:40 No, no pump. So it's just them sucking?
41:42 Yeah, and it's gravity as well.
41:44 They're going to have to be Linda Lovelace to suck it that far.
41:47 And how long will one bag last us?
41:50 With 30 kids at this age, you're going to be at least a day.
41:54 They won't drink, you know, too much. A day?
41:57 I thought you were going to say, like, three weeks.
41:59 A day? That would be wasteful thinking.
42:01 70 pounds a day?
42:03 Can I ask you a really big favour? Don't tell Colin.
42:07 It's a need-to-know basis.
42:09 With all the housekeeping done, it was now time for the good bit.
42:14 Hello, goats.
42:16 Those are big ones. Welcome to Diddley's squad.
42:19 There we go.
42:21 How old are they? Two weeks old.
42:23 Two weeks.
42:25 You are stunning.
42:32 Ready? Look at your new house.
42:34 Have they been castrated?
42:38 They have been castrated, yeah.
42:40 It's just brilliant being an animal.
42:43 Oh, you're a man. Well, have your bollocks off.
42:46 But I might need them. No, you won't.
42:49 Last two, right? There you go.
42:52 Right, look at them. They're adorable and this lot are eating.
42:57 Yeah, so that's what you want. They're up, they're drinking.
43:00 It's about survival of the fittest.
43:02 No, no, they know what they're doing.
43:04 They all know how to drink.
43:06 How can you stop them drinking as much as they are drinking?
43:09 It's incredibly expensive.
43:11 Observe. Come on.
43:15 That's a good sign they're drinking already.
43:17 Do you know how much they drink, Caleb?
43:19 No, what are you... Why are you telling him that?
43:23 OK, how many bags a week do you think we're going to get through?
43:26 Oh, I don't know. Two bags a week?
43:28 Seven a week.
43:30 So they're in here for two months.
43:33 They normally say 12 weeks.
43:35 Ours normally, we can normally start weaning them at ten weeks
43:39 if they get a good start.
43:41 So ten weeks, and they'll eat bamboos?
43:44 They will eat pretty much anything,
43:46 but, yeah, they will do some clearing for you if you'd like them to.
43:49 Definitely, that's what I want them for,
43:51 cos they can get to places that my amazing machine can't get to.
43:54 There you go. And they use less diesel.
43:56 You're so sweet.
43:58 Can you give me a few kisses?
44:00 Kisses?
44:03 With the goats settled, we had to sex-split the weaners,
44:10 which, in English, means separating the boy piglets from their sisters,
44:16 because they'd now reached, um, that age.
44:20 The males go in here, so you've got the three-metre gap,
44:25 then the lady ones go in here.
44:27 Yep.
44:29 Sex-splitting.
44:32 Sex-splitting happening?
44:34 Nope. That went well.
44:36 You're literally just walking around after piglets.
44:39 No, I'm getting them back up towards you to get them in a corner.
44:43 No, I've failed to get them in a corner.
44:47 Here they come. There they go.
44:50 Come on, piglet. Come on.
44:54 Come on, piggies.
44:56 Come on, piggies.
44:58 Fucking hell.
45:00 Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Oh, my gosh.
45:04 No, no, they've just gone down a narrow passageway and they have escaped.
45:08 I just don't...
45:11 How does anyone sex-split a weaner?
45:14 Eventually, Caleb turned up and showed us how it's done.
45:20 Ooh.
45:22 Oh, nice.
45:24 That's it.
45:28 Take that one round.
45:30 Caleb, move in.
45:32 Ooh, wow.
45:34 Is that definitely a boy? Yep.
45:37 Right, go, go, go, go, girls.
45:41 Done.
45:43 Back in March, I'd said I didn't want to keep pigs any more.
45:49 She's just sat on another one.
45:52 The piglet deaths had been too traumatic.
45:56 But instead, I'd decided to think of a way of keeping more piglets alive.
46:10 And then I'd rehired Ajax the Boar.
46:17 Hello, pig. You're back.
46:20 To do his thing with the four remaining ladies.
46:24 Right. This is lovely. So we just leave them to it for...?
46:30 Four weeks. Four weeks. Yeah.
46:32 I love them. They'll be my favourite animals that we've had on the farm by a long way.
46:37 It had been a wonderful morning,
46:42 learning how to sex-split the mischievous weaners
46:46 and welcoming Ajax back.
46:48 And then, that afternoon, while out and about in the wildflower meadows,
46:55 the day got even better.
46:58 Hang on.
47:05 No way.
47:07 No, he's back!
47:09 Gerald's back!
47:11 I cannot believe it!
47:15 GERALD LAUGHS
47:17 Gerald! You're back!
47:19 You're back! Hello there.
47:22 Jeremy, all right? Lovely to see you, my man.
47:25 How are we? Well, God, I hope as well as you are.
47:28 How are you? Yeah, I'm getting there.
47:31 And you're straight back to it? Yeah.
47:34 Well, come on, chapter and verse.
47:36 Because I know, obviously, you've been poorly,
47:38 but have you been having chemo, or was it radio?
47:41 Radio. OK. Yeah. Was that all right?
47:44 37 times I had to go.
47:46 37? Yeah.
47:48 And you've got the all-clear? That's the main...?
47:50 Well, you haven't got the all-clear yet, but, you know, touch wood.
47:55 I can't even get my head round it.
47:57 So what was it? Did you have a catheter, then, for...? Yeah.
48:01 We'd go and we'd take that down, drop it, keep pimp, pimp, pimp, pimp,
48:05 that keeps going. You've got to do it yourself.
48:07 All the cause and points, cos they see you round, drop another one.
48:11 So, you've got that big round mushroom.
48:14 When that's whistling round, you've got...
48:17 It's got a teapot in it, like that,
48:20 and then a packet full of, you know, dark ones, which was there one day.
48:24 Bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum.
48:26 This is the best description of cancer treatments I've ever heard, I think.
48:30 Yeah, very much.
48:34 You've no idea how much we've all missed you.
48:37 Must be nice to be back on a day like today. Yeah, it is.
48:41 It's nice to be back to see all my friends. Yeah.
48:44 So that's why...
48:46 It's like mowing grass with a mower, isn't it?
48:48 You can't get up part of it, cause the narrows with the programme and everything.
48:53 Well, you can't, but, you know.
48:56 Well, I just think, you know, with... Well, I don't know... Yeah, but...
49:00 No, no, no, that's right.
49:02 Got a good nozzle on the end of a watering can.
49:05 A lot of the time, farming is brutal and hard.
49:15 But at this time of year, when everything is vivid and growing
49:24 and bursting with life, and everyone is well...
49:30 It can be the best job in the world.
49:34 On the surface, then, Diddly Squat was a green and happy place
49:54 as we headed into summer.
49:58 But underground, an alien life form was gathering an army.
50:04 Can I interest you in the new Diddly Squat range?
50:14 Are you selling space penises?
50:16 I cannot tell you how good they are.
50:19 Six pound one kilo.
50:22 Ready?
50:24 Caleb, how are you? I'm very well, thanks.
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