Jeremy Clarkson has branded his farm an “expensive failure” as he admitted most of his agricultural ventures have ended in disaster.
The 61-year-old former Top Gear presenter bought the country estate in Chadlington, Oxfordshire, in 2008 and has recently begun to document his life as a farmer in new Amazon Prime show Clarkson’s Farm.
But Clarkson admitted in his column for The Times newspaper that he has started “many new and exciting money-spinning projects, and then watched in horror as almost all of them ended in expensive failure.”
The Grand Tour star admitted that his latest venture – growing jalapeno chilli peppers – already appears to be doomed, after investing in polytunnel and drainage systems to grow the plants.
Watch: ‘I’m constantly being shouted at’, says Jeremy Clarkson whilst speaking to Sky News about his new show, Clarkson’s Farm
He wrote: “The only problem is that by the time the polytunnels 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 TV presenter sells his produce at his Diddly Squat Farm Shop, which has recently been overrun with fans of the show.
Clarkson revealed his first plan for his farm was to grow potatoes – which initially appeared to be successful as they grew well.
But he added: “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.”
He then tried to farm trout, but local wildlife got the better of him.
Clarkson explained: “I made a pond, provided shade so they didn’t get sunburnt and imported from America an automatic fish feeder. I sold a few to my local pub and ate a couple one night with some of the potatoes that hadn’t rotted.
“The rest were stolen by otters and herons.”
In May Clarkson revealed his chickens had all been killed by a fox and he previously admitted falsely marketing his chard as spinach in an attempt to help it sell.
But he admitted his “biggest disaster by far” was his idea to grow wasabi – in an attempt to become the only British farmer of the Japanese horseradish plant.
The Who Wants To Be A Millionaire host revealed the wasabi was all eaten by his own pheasants – causing them to break into a sweat and “squawk a lot”.
Despite Clarkson’s despair at his farming abilities his TV series about his attempts has just been renewed for a second season.
