Chapter 1: Tractoring / Chapter 2: Sheeping / Chapter 3: Shopping / Chapter 4: Wilding / Chapter 5: Pan(dem)icking / Chapter 6: Melting / Chapter 8: Harvesting (Looking for my review? It’s here.)
There are jobs to be completed before harvest time arrives. Jeremy gets to work on his and Lisa’s new water bottling plant, situated in a boiling metal shipping container.
Then the rains return.
Lisa has been improving the shop, though she’s not actually allowed to sell the pineapples and avocados now on the shelves as they aren’t local. Only the eggs are from their farm. The campsite next door will be reopening soon which will mean more customers.
Charlie turns up and talks margins. Lisa says they’ve got a roughly 40% mark-up on everything. Charlie points out after doing some calculations that their margin on many goods are much lower than that.
Jeremy’s quarter of a million bees have been busy making honey and honeycomb. Even in his beekeeper outfit, Jeremy is stung on the buttock. He returns to the office and separates the beeswax, honeycomb and the honey, the jars ready for the shop. He also cuts some farm vegetables to sell. He and Lisa argue over pricing the jars of honey, with Lisa wanting to go lower and Jeremy higher.
Caleb turns up in hs snazzy new car, though he only drives locally. He’s also soon getting a perm.
Jeremy goes to pull up his wasabi plants from his stream pebble bed. Many have died but some have survived the drought. He decides to send Kaleb to London to sell the wasabi in high-end restaurants. Kaleb has never driven to London and has only been there at all once on a school trip. Before Kaleb sets off Jeremy bamboozles him with information on the ULEZ and congestion charges. He also tells Kaleb not to accept less than £300 per kg for the wasabi.
Back on the farm Jeremy is bored with the annual government grants forms until Charlie points out he could get £82,000. As Jeremy fills in the endless forms he wishes he’d planted fewer types of vegetables.
Kaleb makes it into central London, confessing to a chef in one of the restaurants that he has tried his wasabi, but only on a ready salted crisp. The chef likes the quality but it’s too small. Outside, Kaleb finds he’s been given a parking ticket.
At the next restaurant Kaleb is laughed at for wanting £300 a kilo. He’s offered £10 for a piece. He heads to the Shard restaurant, appreciating the view despite being scared of heights. He suggests £25 for 100g but is told they will think about it.
The wasabi goes in the farm shop instead. The council have discovered Lisa has been selling out-of-area produce which makes Jeremy angry, as the next county is only a few miles away and they can’t sell anything from there. The council is opening an enforcement case on them. Jeremy makes scented candles out of his beeswax, and labels them “This smells like my bollocks”.
An otter has been killing the fish in the wetlands pond, so Kaleb puts up an electric fence to stop it. Jeremy sells some of his trout to his local pub, though he’s initially conflicted as it was a wilding project but now he’s selling the fish for wealthy people to eat at the pub. Legally the caught fish, still alive, have to be oxygenated in the short drive to the pub, where he sells them for £2 each.
It’s the end of June and the shop is doing well. But the most important aspect of Jeremy’s farm is the crops, and they will soon need to be harvested. Charlie is impressed with the barley crop. The oil seed rape seeds are almost ready too and look good; first they need to kill the rape root which will make the seeds easier to harvest. Charlie also warns Jeremy about the moisture levels which need to be between 6 and 9% before using the combine harvester. Jeremy buys a moisture meter. Charlie is going on holiday and will miss the harvesting.
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