Clarkson's Farm season 3 episode 5 picks up in April, where Diddly Squat Farm is making the most of the good weather with plenty of ideas brewing.
Jeremy, as ever has new moneymaking ideas including growing new crops like mushrooms and mustard. Elsewhere, Kaleb isn't too happy with some changes around the farm and he and Jeremy get to work on the big dam repair which has spent a lot of time looming over their heads.
So with everyone very busy during the spring, here's what happened in Clarkson's Farm season 3 episode 5...
New beginnings
The next episode picks up in April, where Jeremy reveals the arrival of springtime had given everyone a "much needed lift". They were still reeling from the death of the pigs, but hoped that spring would give everyone a chance to heal and move on, getting back to planting and growing.
Jeremy reveals he had another brainwave. He takes us through a field that he usually uses to plant maize, which he says is great for the birds, but now he is planning on planting mustard there instead. He reveals the birds will still benefit from it, but he also intends to sell it in the shop as well as the burger van. He reckons he can get a yield of about 40,000 jars from the field, but also admits his maths has usually turned out to be wrong... so we'll see!
Elsewhere, Kaleb's fields were finally dry enough for him to plant wheat, so he got to work there. He explains it's a spring crop and can be made into pasta, and it is also a very profitable crop to grow.
Jeremy has another brainwave, which he decides to go and talk to Charlie about in his office. He wants to grow mushrooms, and Charlie questions why considering they've got "quite a lot going on already". Jeremy explains it's easy and he's got a business plan, where he claims after two weeks they will have 1.2kg of mushrooms, which he intends to sell for £24 per kilo. Charlie expresses concerns saying it almost sounds too good to be true. Eventually, he concedes he likes the idea.
So, with this in mind, Jeremy decides to find the perfect location to grow the mushrooms. He heads to an undergeound bunker at the top end of the farm which had once been an airfield. Jeremy speculates that it was an air raid shelter. They reckon they can do it quickly and for a good price, so Alan heads off to get supplies.
Jeremy also wants to remove some of the nettles from the farm to turn them into nettle soup, but runs into a problem when he tries to use machinery to pick them, as it ends up picking all sorts of things with it. He is told that the best way to go about this is to recruit people to pick them manually, but he is concerned about costs. He starts to realise things are adding up, and Charlie arrives to bring up further complications like an Environmental Health certificate.
After some analysis of the crops, they learn that they need to add magnesium into them, but Kaleb is worried about this as he thought they weren't adding additional things. Andy explains that when things are lacking, his method sees them using a natural nutritional product to help things along. Kaleb agrees but spends a lot of time complaining about adding the magnesium!
Jeremy returns from filming The Grand Tour and they get to work on dam repairs, but they spend a fair bit of time having tea breaks and don't get loads done, spending most of it talking about football. Eventually, they snap back into it, and work on reducing the water level in the pond. But the overflow pipe is blocked and they have to work on clearing it out.
Elsewhere, Jeremy takes the nettle soup to Lisa at the farm shop where he tasks her with convincing customers to try it, as it's potentially something people are unfamiliar with. He also wants them to pay £10, and Lisa pushes back worrying that's far too much money. Lisa says he's going to have to take a loss otherwise they won't sell at all, especially as she has a three day window to sell them.
Lisa attempts to sell them, but by 5pm they're all still on the shelves and she's not happy but Jeremy's insistence she sell them for £9.99, after agreeing to drop the price down slightly. She's angry and claims it makes the shop look stupid because she doesn't have any advance warning. So Jeremy abandons the soup and concentrates on the mushroom plan.
They start moving the mushrooms into the bunker, and they have a pretty substantial amount arriving onto the farm! Once it's done, they leave the bunker and let the mushrooms do their thing, and he moves onto another challenge where he's building a pen for some new arrivals.
The new arrivals in questions are goats. He wants the goats to eat away at some of the brambles, opening up some more space. Outside of the goats, he intends to breed pigs again, and things seem to be going quite well.
On top of this, Gerald has returned to the farm and updates Jeremy about what's been going on. He explains he's getting there, and has had several sessions of radiotherapy. He's feeling optimistic about things and is back to work for now.
Meanwhile, the mushrooms are growing at an alarming rate. More on that next episode!
