Clarkson's Farm season 3 is finally here, where the first episode catches viewers up with everything that's happened since we last visited Diddly Squat.
Unfortunately, there's not a lot of good news as the farm had taken quite a few hits due to weather, inflation, and a myriad of other problems. From selling cows to having to shut down the restaurant, it was a very difficult time for Jeremy's beloved farm.
In episode 1, Jeremy outlines the long list of problems they've faced, and we follow the presenter as he struggles with some of the decisions that are out of his hands. This causes him to brainstorm, thinking of alternative ways they could make money and continue to support the farm.
Here's what went down in Clarkson's Farm season 3, episode 1...
Diddly Squat's long list of problems...
The first episode picks up in mid-August 2022, where Jeremy's voiceover re-introduces the farm interspersed with clips of the shop operating, the various animals, and people working with the crops.
But he has bad news, saying that while things look good at face value, "everything that could go wrong has gone wrong". Jeremy goes on to list the problems, starting by focusing on the weather, saying that they'd suffered the driest summer for 87 years and naturally, that had a huge effect on crops!
"Cheerful" Charlie, Jeremy's land agent and advisor, spoke to him about the potatoes and revealed that growing them without moisture is a nightmare. He says that because the skin has set, they won't grow any larger. Not only that, Kaleb was unable to harvest any of them because of how small they were.
Elsewhere, Jeremy's sunflower field was suffering due to the extreme heat. Since their seeds weren't ready to be harvested, they were essentially useless. The next field along had a similar problem, and Jeremy swore in frustration at the fact the fields had taken such a battering. You can't blame him really!
The soil was also so dry that it would affect future planting, meaning there were delays when it came to starting new crops which would affect the farm in the short and long term. Jeremy went on to address the restaurant they'd opened to sell the produce they'd grown and reared on the farm, which had also taken a hit.
Things seemed to be going well at first, with customers flocking to the restaurant and enjoying food and drink in the sunshine, but Jeremy was saddened when the council served them with an enforcement notice after just six weeks, saying they had to close it down.
The enforcement notice caused a great deal of stress for Jeremy and his team, as it outlined a number of things they were required to cease doing or remove, including the restaurant and on-site parking, which the team was frustrated by claiming they were "wasting money".
Additionally, the restaurant's closure meant they were unable to keep all the cows due to budgeting constraints. They made the difficult decision to get rid of 13 of them to make things easier. Not only that, but they've had to separate the calves from their parents, which they all found heartbreaking.
Elsewhere, Charlie sits down with Jeremy and explains the very real problems inflation has caused. With prices soaring, sometimes going up by three times the previous amount, it has put Jeremy in a very hard position. This included the increase in energy prices.
However, there was some good news! Jeremy was delighted when he visited their beekeeper and found out that they had produced a lot of honey, exclaiming that it was the only thing that had gone right recently.
Following all this information, Jeremy got to brainstorming where he thought about how he could make money outside of the crops. On a walk, he counts a number of different berries they have growing on their land. This causes him to speculate whether could "farm the unfarmed", making money out of the bits of the farm they're not yet using.
Jeremy sits Kaleb down in his office and tells him he's made a "big decision", saying he is no longer the tractor driver on the farm. But it's good news, as he says he wants to promote Kaleb to Farm Manager, giving him more responsibilities as well as a bigger say in how things work, which he was naturally delighted about!
He goes on to explain to Kaleb that he needs to work on farming the as-yet-unfarmed area of their land. Jeremy wants to focus on that area, while Kaleb is in charge of the arable, a place he already knows well. Inevitably, the two turn it into a competition to see who makes the most, and Kaleb is determined to beat Jeremy... as a surprise to no one.
Jeremy heads out to the local supermarket to do research, realising that they're charging 6p a blackberry, so he discovers the hedgerows he has on his property are now "fruity gold mines". Going down this train of thought, he asks to borrow a blackberry picking machine and gets one brought in.
This causes Jeremy and Kaleb to clash when the machine is far bigger than he expected, and they accuse the other of getting in the way of each other's farming, so it didn't take long before there were disagreements about space. Jeremy attempts to manoeuvre the machine himself, and it isn't long before he needs Kaleb's help.
Kaleb is delighted when he gets the machine working but that ends in tears when they accidentally destroy a wall and end up harvesting a grand total of zero blackberries. Meanwhile, Kaleb works on fertilising the fields while not using too many chemicals, but is advised by Charlie not to cut corners unncessarily.
Jeremy takes drastic measures to harvest the blackberries and ends up enlisting the help of a Henry Hoover, which he uses to literally vacuum the blackberries off the bush. Lo and behold, it works! He gleefully takes the blackberries to the kitchen, where he proceeds to try and make jam.
Charlie comes in and scolds Jeremy for not measuring after asking how much is in the pot. He also asks about a food hygiene test and other food safety regulations which Jeremy hadn't considered. They have an argument about not being able to use the jam where Charlie stresses that it isn't weighed properly, so they can't account for accurate sugar content and other food safety warnings.
Eventually, Jeremy concedes this is a problem so they start again and actually weigh things this time, and he gets the ball rolling with Charlie's help. They make logos to go on the glass jars of jam and get them put into crates, and it finally seems like they're getting somewhere.
Jeremy brings the jam to the farm shop where he says he wants to sell it for £3.60 based on the cost of ingredients, and it goes on display, but Jeremy is aware he doesn't have an infinite supply of blackberries to harvest.
So he proposes a new idea to Charlie: pigs. He's critical of the intent to breed the pigs as he warns Jeremy they'd need someone on site every day to monitor their welfare, advising that they just buy piglets in instead. Charlie is worried Jeremy's idea is too idyllic, and they leave it there... for now.
At the end of the episode, Jeremy is stopped in his tracks where he receives a devastating phone call learning that Gerald, another valued member of his team, has got cancer and he struggles to process the news.
