Jeremy Clarkson: All his farming failures as Diddly Squat Farm under threat

Jeremy Clarkson has revealed he is taking one last gamble to save Diddly Squat Farm from closing down.

The Clarkson's Farm star has admitted he has considered selling the farm he bought in Chadlington, Oxfordshire, in 2008 after several years of trying to turn it into a profitable agricultural business.

Clarkson, 63, confessed in his new book Pigs Might Fly he is planting all his hopes in the future of the farm on a crop of mustard.

He wrote: "I decided to plant my game covers with mustard. It’s my last roll of the dice.

"My last chance to make something – anything – work. And if it doesn’t? I don’t even want to think about it."

Will Clarkson sell his farm?

The former Top Gear presenter recently admitted in his column in The Times newspaper: "I arrived at a crossroads and was not sure which way to turn.

"I could sell the farm, but I like having it and for very good reasons. There are no death duties on farmland, so my children like me having it too.

"This means I have to hang on to it, but what then? Do nothing? That would be heartbreaking."

Since he began farming the land himself Clarkson has literally poured blood, sweat and tears into his Diddly Squat Farm ventures, as documented in his Amazon Prime Video show.

Fans of the series are still waiting to find out if there will be a third season, as Clarkson's contract with Amazon was reported to be hanging in the balance after he published a controversial column about Meghan Markle in The Sun earlier this year.

Clarkson has called the farm an "expensive failure" and admitted he is keeping it afloat with his income from his other career ventures. In his first year in charge the farm made just £144 profit.

We plough back through Clarkson's Diddly Squat disasters.

Steak restaurant

The Grand Tour star put everything behind his restaurant – hoping to cash in on the popularity of his farm shop by charging visiting fans top dollar to dine on his beef.

Clarkson was so confident in the appeal of his steak he claimed he would be able to convert vegans to eat meat.

But the fine dining experience he hoped for was hit by repeated set backs after he was refused planning permission to convert his lambing shed into a 60 seat restaurant, as well as being denied permission to extend the onsite parking.

Clarkson then gleefully declared he had found a "cunning little loophole" to serve food in his shepherd's hut, and his 'steak restaurant' opened as a rough-and-ready dining experience, serving roast beef, sparkling wine and strawberries in a shack.

The eatery was panned by food critics for "fleecing" customers, and then shut down by the council for breaching planning rules.

Chilli peppers

The Who Wants To Be A Millionaire host invested around £20,000 in polytunnels and drainage systems to grow jalapeno chilli peppers to make chilli chutney.

But before he'd even started planting he admitted the project felt doomed from the start, as he would need to charge £500 a jar to make any money.

Bees

Clarkson charges £12.50 for a jar of 'Bee Juice' at his farm shop.

But collecting the honey from his 250,000 bees has not been without its sting.

The TV presenter claimed that his bees "hate me" and revealed that despite donning his full bee-keeper protective suit, one of the honey-makers had got inside his wellington boot, crawled up inside his trousers and stung him on the behind.

Sheep

The petrol-head showed his softer side when he invested in a flock of sheep for the purpose of producing lamb to eat.

Clarkson admitted turning a profit after buying the ewes and hiring a ram to breed with them was a big gamble.

But when three of the sheep failed to fall pregnant he was forced to take them to the abattoir.

After filling in the paperwork Clarkson asked if he could say goodbye to his ewes, only to be told they had already been slaughtered.

Clarkson's Farm viewers saw him looking tearful as he realised the sheep he had fed and cared for were gone.

He told the Metro: "Nobody likes killing an animal. They just don’t. You can’t say: 'I enjoy killing animals.' You’d be deranged, you’d be a sociopath. So you don’t enjoy it.'"

Wasabi

Clarkson has called his attempted to grow the Japanese horseradish plant one of his "biggest disasters".

Most of the wasabi he managed to grow was eaten by his own pheasants - causing them to break into a sweat and “squawk a lot”.

Farmhand Kaleb Cooper drove all the way to London to try and sell what was left to top sushi restaurants but chefs were not that impressed with the amount or quality he had on offer.

'Spinach'

The Top Gear star's efforts to grow chard actually proved quite promising. But the problem was, none of the local visitors to his farm shop back in 2020 wanted to buy it.

He confessed in his Times column: “I do have plenty of chard, though, which to begin with wasn’t selling at all.

“It turns out that people round here (including me) don’t know what chard is, so I’m now calling it spinach and it’s flying off the shelves. That’s probably illegal.”

Chickens

Fresh free range eggs at a celebrity farm shop - what could go wrong?

Fantastic foxes of course. In May 2021 Clarkson revealed his entire flock of chickens had been eaten by a fox.

Fish

Jeremy Clarkson's girlfriend Lisa Hogan helped him to farm trout in a manmade pond on their estate.

As well as building the pond they had to invest in making shade for the fish and imported an automatic fish feeder from America.

They managed to catch a few and sell them to the local pub.

But then local wildlife got the better of them and the trout were stolen by otters and herons.

Potatoes

The simple spud was Clarkson's very first venture as a farmer.

The potatoes successfully grew and were harvested, but the Diddly Squat Shop was not yet up and running.

Clarkson revealed: "Sadly, I ended up with 16 tons of the damn things, which was not a large enough amount to interest the supermarkets, but it was too much to sell at the side of the road.

“And by the time I’d built a farm shop in which they could be sold, they had all rotted.”

Hawkstone Brewery

Clarkson branded booze - how could it go wrong? The TV presenters collaboration with Cotswold Brewing Co producing his own lager, beer and cider certainly started out to be a potential winner.

But in the summer of 2023 the Top Gear star was forced to issue an embarrassing warning to fans that his cider bottles were at risk of exploding due to a packaging fault.

The Diddly Squat Farm Shop

Clarkson's farm shop is arguably his biggest success. But its popularity could also be its downfall.

Ever since it opened the shop has seen fans flock to the purpose-built shed in a field to see what all the fuss is about and hopefully meet the man himself while they browse the vegetable, pickles and eggs.

This has led to huge traffic congestion on the winding country roads around the Diddly Squat Farm Shop which only spiralled further out of control when Clarkson's Farm began to air on TV and media attention highlighted the parking problems.

Clarkson has tried to expand the car park, but been refused permission by the council as he lives in a protected area of natural beauty.

And he has even had to hold a meeting with local village residents in a bid to appease them over the problems caused by the nuisance visitors coming to his shop.

Will mustard give dying Diddly Squat Farm the kick it needs to keep afloat? Only time will tell.

Read more: Jeremy Clarkson

• Jeremy Clarkson in ‘active talks’ with Amazon to renew Clarkson’s Farm despite cancellation reports (Independent, 2 min read)

• Jeremy Clarkson considers selling Diddly Squat Farm after series of disasters (Oxford Mail, 2 min read)

• Jeremy Clarkson admits struggle with farm shop success as visitors urinate on his driveway

Watch: Jeremy Clarkson warns bottles of Hawkstone Cider are explosion risk