Jeremy Clarkson revealed his new farm has personally been a money-making disaster.
Despite this, the programme became Amazon Prime’s highest rated show ever and has since been extended for a second series.
The 61-year-old has owned the Cotswolds farm in Chadlington, named Diddly Squat, since 2008 and started running it over 18 months ago.
Writing in his column for The Times, Jeremy said he would have to charge £500 for a jar of chilli chutney to make a profit.
His latest venture in chillies led him to invest in expensive drainage systems and poly-tunnels.
Jeremy wrote, “By the time the poly-tunnels are up, I’ll be about £20,000 down. This means that to turn a profit my chutney will have to be about £500 a jar.”
The Grand Tour host said he invested in, “many new and exciting money-spinning projects, and then watched in horror as almost all of them ended in expensive failure”.
Chillies were not his only failure, the Who Wants To Be A Millionaire host said his “biggest disaster by far” was his attempt to grow wasabi.
Jeremy thought he was making a good investment as he became the only farmer producing wasabi in Britain.
The host quickly learned there was a good reason for the lack of investment.
Jeremy revealed the wasabi was eaten by his own pheasants, resulting in them breaking into a sweat and “squawking a lot”.
That’s not the only time pests got in the way of Jeremy’s farming success.
In his attempt to grow potatoes he revealed that many of them were stolen by otters and herons.
Jeremy wrote, “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.”
The star also revealed he planned to start rearing trout, “I made a pond, provided shade so they didn’t get sunburnt and imported from America an automatic fish feeder.”
Jeremy was never afraid to splash that cash on his farm. He invested in a Lamborghini tractor which he later found was too big for his shed.
The glitch meant his new purchase stopped him from being able to use any of his farming equipment.
Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
