Clarkson shows off his farm and explains his reasoning for deciding to farm the land itself, before cutting to a montage of all the various escapades he was involved in during his farming endeavors, to Every Picture Tells a Story by Rod Stewart. After the montage plays, Clarkson states it is time for him to start his first job: to plant the wheat and barley in the fields.
Clarkson sets out to buy a tractor from his local dealership and consults the dealership's owner, Patrick Edwards, on the purchase of a tractor for his farming duties, and tests out one of their restored tractors. He ultimately spurns the tractors at the dealership and purchases a Lamborghini R8.270 DCR instead from a German dealership; as he drives along he gushes about the vehicle.
When he arrives at the farm, he finds out that his tractor is too big to enter its parking area, a opinion shared by Clarkson's girlfriend Lisa Hogan and land agent Charlie Ireland; as Charlie views the tractor he begins pointing out issues with the tractor, such as the wrong hitch, and subsequently has a meeting with Clarkson to discuss about the cost of buying agricultural equipment for the tractor. Clarkson is alarmed at the cost of buying all the required equipment; Charlie then suggests to Clarkson to buy his equipment second-hand from a farm sale.
Clarkson decides to go to a farm sale and spends £82,000 to get all the equipment for his tractor "and £2 on office furniture". After purchasing his equipment, Charlie and Clarkson meet to discuss about the year's cropping plan. As they are discussing, two long haul trucks arrive carrying seed and fertilizer; Clarkson struggles to move his large tractor out of the way to the consternation of Charlie and proceeds to unload the seed and hay from the fertilizer "despite a couple of small accidents" and thanks the truck drivers for their patience.
Clarkson attempts to figure out how to use his newly-purchased agricultural equipment, how to hitch them onto his tractor and how to drive the tractor properly but gets confused by the vast amount of buttons and knobs. He contacts his local branch of the National Farmer's Union to ask for help, who send Georgia Craig down to assist him in his endeavors. Georgia then teaches Clarkson how to hitch his tractor to a cultivator; Clarkson's impatience shows here, particularly regarding repeatedly entering and exiting the tractor, which culminates in Clarkson blatantly defying Georgia's instructions and hitching it in an unconventional way, much to her consternation.
After Georgia teaches Clarkson how to use the cultivator in a nearby field, they have an impromptu picnic. While eating, Clarkson is impressed at what he has accomplished, having proved his critics wrong. Clarkson begins farming on his own the next day, "excited" about going solo; his impatience shows again as he comes up with a plan to make farming easier and faster for him. Whatever Clarkson did causes uneven cultivation, a fact Lisa mocks him about, as well as wasting time and unnecessary fuel. It is at this point Clarkson realizes that farming the entire farm on his own while sticking to Charlie's stringent timelines was impossible.
Clarkson hires young farmer Kaleb Cooper to help out, and both alternate shifts at farming the fields, resulting in significantly faster cultivating. The duo are well on track to finish cultivating the farm by Charlie's deadlines, but two days of rain thwart their efforts. Once the rain stops, Clarkson goes out cultivating again, but discovers that his cultivator is malfunctioning; Kaleb and Clarkson manage to fix the cultivator, but as soon as they are finished it begins raining again, thwarting their efforts to cultivate once again. Unfortunately for Clarkson, rain falls for the rest of the week, and by the time the rain stopped Clarkson was well behind schedule.
Attempting to make up for lost time, Clarkson attempts to cultivate the first opportunity he has, but his tractor stalls and refuses to work; Kaleb and Clarkson are unable to diagnose the issue, leading them to give up. Clarkson resumes work the next day, having diagnosed the issue as a lever inadvertently being knocked into neutral, causing his tractor to have no drive. Now significantly behind schedule, Clarkson and Kaleb discover that a bag of seed had begun growing; they resort to planting the remaining seeds using the seed drill, even in fields that were not properly cultivated.
Kaleb teaches Clarkson how to use the seed drill and accompanies him initially, but eventually has to leave to take care of his own farming business. Clarkson, being impatient, attempts to innovate his seed drilling process; this results in irregular tramlines, which Kaleb notices and lectures Clarkson for. The next day, Clarkson and Charlie discover that one of the fields containing rapeseed was foraged by flea beetles. Clarkson's cultivating schedule would be interrupted by non-stop torrential rain going on for six weeks. As news reports blare in the background, Clarkson laments about his current situation.
Tropes featured in the episode:
- Awesome, but Impractical: Clarkson's Lamborghini tractor is this; despite the awesome name recognition, his tractor is too large to do things efficiently.
- Blatant Lies: Clarkson attempts to pass off him accidentally popping a bag of fertilizer as he unloads more bags as "a couple of small accidents".
- Cue the Rain: It always rains whenever Clarkson is trying to cultivate, already running behind schedule.
- Deadpan Snarker: Lisa snarking at Clarkson's inability to "drive straight".
- Didn't Think This Through: Clarkson's attempt at innovating creating tramlines ultimately leads in him getting scolded harshly by Kaleb.
- Genius Ditz: Kaleb is knowledgeable about anything and everything relating to farming. Anything else on the other hand...
- Hopeless with Tech: Clarkson gets confused with the "8000 buttons" in his tractor as well as how to operate the various equipment for his tractor.
- Pilot: First episode of the series.
- Running Gag: The cast stating that Clarkson's tractor is too big.
- You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: When Clarkson discovers he has 46 more bags of fertilizer to unload, he lets out a resigned "You're kidding!".
