Things don’t always go to plan for Jeremy Clarkson on his Diddly Squat Farm, especially when Kaleb Cooper is away with series four of the Amazon Prime show weeks away
Jeremy Clarkson says his first attempt at solo farming when trusted right-hand man Kaleb Cooper went away was “a slow-motion accident”.
The former Top Gear presenter, 64, bought Diddly Squat Farm in Oxfordshire back in 2008 and it has since became a well known piece of land thanks to becoming the focus of his popular Amazon Prime series, Clarkson’s Farm.
He’s mucking in – and that means turning his hand to all kinds of new experiences – including birthing a cow. But he described having to fend for himself as a huge “wake-up call,” and when the harvest didn’t go quite as planned, it all got a little heartbreaking.
Jeremy has spoken about the ups and downs of life on the farm in series four, which is about to drop on Prime next Friday. “I did do some of the farming for the first time ever, completely on my own, with Kaleb not being around,” Jeremy said. “I had to take care of the pigs on my own. I had to take care of the cows on my own, and I had to get the crops planted on my own.
“When you’re doing it completely on your own – well, things had to be redone a few times! When you have planted an entire field and it’s taken days, it shouldn’t have taken days, but it did take me days – you finally get it in, and then three weeks or a month later, absolutely nothing grows out of it.
“That’s a slow-motion accident, and it’s extremely disheartening when you’ve worked your socks off and nothing grows. Nothing. Not one single thing grew out of the soil.” Jeremy concluded: “That, in terms of farming, was my big wake-up call.”
Back-breaking labour is often left unrewarded when the harvest comes in, with the TV star frequently barely breaking even on his crops, livestock, and farming side hustles.
When harvest rolled around, the two butted heads once again – particularly due to Clarkson’s “incompetence”, as Kaleb puts it.
“Jeremy and I argued quite a bit in harvest because it was so stressful for me trying to do my very best again as a contractor,” he says. “It was pretty tough mentally. The problem with the harvest was because I’m still young, I’m 26, I think a lot of people can doubt me sometimes.
“I doubt myself sometimes because I think everyone does ask themselves if they’re doing things right. Jeremy really enjoys doing the harvest, but he’s a pain. Life would be easier if he wasn’t there during harvest, just because he’s a bit incompetent!”
Clarkson’s Farm series 4 comes to Prime Video on Friday, 23 May.
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