Now in peak summer, Clarkson talks about how a day normally goes by in this time of year. The next day, Clarkson and Kaleb do a moisture test on the barley; Kaleb teaches Clarkson how to use the moisture test machine and begin testing the rapeseed. The rapeseed gives a result of 8% moisture, perfect for Clarkson and Kaleb, and Clarkson is eager to begin harvesting. Charlie would not be present at the harvesting as he was on vacation.
Before they can do any harvesting however, they need a combine harvester; Clarkson rejects the idea of buying a combine harvester due to its high price, and so decides to rent one. Clarkson feels that other farmers in the area would also be doing their moisture tests around this time, making it difficult for him to rent a combine harvester in theory. Returning to the office, Clarkson's attempts to rent a combine harvester to no avail as all others have rented out combine harvesters as well or were too busy harvesting their own farms and could only aid Clarkson in harvesting his after they were done. Clarkson then exits his office and looks out towards the horizon using a pair of binoculars to find that most of the other farms in the vicinity have combine harvesters, giving him a stark reminder that he "really was the new kid on the block".
Over the afternoon, Clarkson continues his attempts at renting a combine harvester to no avail; Kaleb however manages to find someone who can rent a combine harvester to Clarkson, his friend Simon Strong, who is nearly done with harvesting his field. The next morning, it was all systems go for harvesting, with Clarkson and Kaleb getting all the final preparations done for harvesting. Clarkson rents a trailer and attempts to hitch it to his tractor and ends up resorting to asking Kaleb for help; once the trailer is hitched, Kaleb and Clarkson rendezvous at the farm shop.
As they move, Clarkson notes that they have to pick up the pace with harvesting due to a weather front moving in on Sunday morning; at the time, it was Friday afternoon, so they had to complete four days worth of harvesting within a day and a half. The gang waits around a for a bit before Simon's combine harvester arrives, whereupon they discuss on how they were going to harvest the crops. Clarkson notes that it is an unusual year as both the barley and rape were ready for harvest at the same time, likely thanks to the dry spell. After this discussion, Simon hops into the combine harvester and begins harvesting.
Kaleb catches the initial two payloads of rapeseed from the combine harvester, communicating with Simon using walkie-talkies; after catching the two payloads, he heads to the barn to unload. Psyching himself up for his first run, Clarkson drives up to the combine harvester and attempts to catch the rapeseed but flubs the process at the last second, wasting some of the seed; learning from his mistakes, Clarkson flawlessly catches the second payload and attempts to unload his load but struggles due to the size of his tractor. Eventually though, he manages to unload the crops.
Clarkson and Kaleb alternate unloading and loading the harvested crops to cover as much ground as possible, with Clarkson consistently struggling to get into the barn due to the sheer size of his tractor; Kaleb then performs a moisture test on the rapeseed, finding it at 7.3%. Rotating shifts, Clarkson, Kaleb and Simon work into the night, harvesting the crops. They resume harvesting the next day; Clarkson is about to drop his first load off for the day, when Kaleb's truck blocks his way; to solve this issue, Clarkson drives Kaleb's truck away and hides it. This would turn out to be the least of his problems, as the sky was overcast, which could lead to undesirable results for the moisture test.
Kaleb and Clarkson test the moisture of the rapeseed and discover that the moisture content is too high, meaning that they couldn't harvest it; they decide to test the barley to see if it could be harvested, and luckily for them, showing a content of 14.7% moisture means it can be harvested. Clarkson and Kaleb operate in shifts again to harvest the barley with Simon, but when Clarkson reaches the barn, he realizes that there is a lack of space for the barley and there is still rapeseed to be harvested.
Contacting Kaleb for advice, Kaleb suggests to Clarkson to store the barley at the bunker Kaleb constructed at the airfield and sell the barley straight away due to the overcast weather. Back in the office, Clarkson frantically calls a grain merchant who agree to send a truck down for collecting the barley. Clarkson unloads the barley in the bunker; Kaleb arrives shortly after, followed by the grain merchant in a long haul truck. Kaleb gets about to loading the truck with the barley; as the barley was being loaded, Clarkson realizes that the grain harvested from the 10 acres would completely fill the truck and they still had more barley to harvest. After the truck leaves, Kaleb reprimands Clarkson for only requesting one truck, and states that due to his actions they cannot harvest any more barley.
Due to Clarkson's ineptitude, all work grinds to a halt, with Kaleb, exasperated, heading for home. He goes to find his truck, only to find that it isn't where he parked it, and spends some time looking for it; after finding his truck, he drives up to Clarkson's tractor, pulls out the keys and tosses them into a nearby field as payback. This payback turned out to be useless as the next day, it began to rain, meaning that no harvesting could be done; no harvesting could be done directly after the rain stopped as Clarkson and the gang had to wait for the crops to dry.
Clarkson, deciding to make hay while the sun shines, starts on another project while waiting for the crops to dry: preparing the lambs for slaughter. He contacts Kevin and Ellen who aid him in weighing the sheep; with 78 sheep ready for slaughter, Clarkson takes them to the abattoir. By then, the rapeseed and barley had dried out and harvesting could continue, selling what was left to harvest to a grain merchant. With both rapeseed and barley now having been harvested, only the wheat was left to harvest; a moisture test shows that the wheat is still too wet, so it cannot be harvested yet. Clarkson subsequently receives a phone call informing him about the death of Wayne, one of his rams; Clarkson orders an autopsy on Wayne, with the veterinarian informing Clarkson that he had died of a twisted intestine. A picture is then shown in memoriam of Wayne.
Clarkson, lamenting Wayne's death, sits in his field of sheep to ensure that his remaining ram, Leonardo, was feeling fine as he was behaving abnormally, hiding in a bush and refusing to eat. A few days later, the moisture level of the wheat was acceptable for harvesting, so Simon, Kaleb and Clarkson could get back to work harvesting the 96 acres of wheat. Clarkson comments that the value of wheat is determined differently to rapeseed and barley, and that he has no clue how much the wheat he has is worth. Kaleb, now desperate for a haircut, ties his hair in a messy topknot to allow him to see clearer.
As they harvest, Kaleb spots a plume of smoke in the distance and gestures to Clarkson to look out his window; this plume of smoke was the result of a harvest fire caused by malfunctioning equipment, described by Clarkson as "every farmer's worst nightmare". Clarkson takes a moment to appreciate the "bulletproof" reliability of his tractor and resumes harvesting the barley; he believes he is improving due to Simon's calm demeanor and clear instructions. Clarkson then comes back from a run to the storage barn to discover that Gerald was now in the driver's seat of the combine harvester; thanks to Gerald's thick accent, Clarkson messes up one of his runs due to misinterpreting Gerald's commands, but eventually they form a rhythm. Clarkson comments that Gerald has been farming these fields for fifty years and didn't want to miss harvesting, even with COVID-19.
Through the combined efforts of Clarkson, Kaleb, Simon and Gerald, harvesting had been completed by end-August; a combined total of 546 acres was farmed for all the crops. By this time, Charlie was back from his vacation, so Clarkson arranges to meet him at a local mill to determine the quality of a wheat sample he had measured from the harvest. He passes his wheat sample to Paul Matthews, the mill manager, to measure the quality. Clarkson and Charlie then discuss about how to gain maximum profit from the wheat, assuming that their wheat was of the highest quality.
Paul returns to read the results to Clarkson and Charlie, telling him their wheat has 13.5% protein content, commenting this was likely the best wheat he had seen until then; this makes Clarkson overjoyed. Paul suggests to Charlie that some wheat be sold to his mill to create flour, with some sent back to Clarkson's farm for sale at the farm shop. Clarkson attempts to haggle with Paul to get as much profit as possible, but is quickly shot down by Paul, who suggests a price of between £180 and £185 for the wheat. Satisfied, Clarkson thanks Paul.
With the harvest complete, Charlie begins calculating Clarkson's annual profits, while Clarkson, back at the office, reads a letter pertaining to the latest sample counts for his bottled spring water; he discovers that his water has failed a few tests, and thus cannot be sold. On further reading, Clarkson discovers that the amount of microorganisms in the water was over 10,000; he is shocked at seeing this number, calling it not a failure, but a "catastrophe". Clarkson, knowing he had to get to the farm shop to pull all stocks of his spring water off the shelves before anyone could drink it, is briefly reunited with the MFB, a heavily-modified Bentley Continental GT, which he used in The Grand Tour. Christening it as the farm's new "fast response vehicle", Clarkson drives through his fields at a high speed with the vehicle and reaches the farm shop in record time.
Lisa, baffled at why Clarkson is here, sees Clarkson taking off his spring water from sale and details to Lisa the next steps before they can sell the spring water again; Clarkson then notices the large mushrooms being stocked in the farm shop. By now, more products sourced from the Diddly Squat farm were being stocked in the farm shop, including rapeseed oil and various cuts of lamb meat. The lamb meat turns out to be incredibly popular, with large turnouts to purchase the lamb meat; by 11:30 am, only seven cuts of lamb remain, proving profitable for the shop. Clarkson laments that it would be a shame to shut down the shop as the milk was not sourced from Oxfordshire.
A whole year for Clarkson on the farm had gone by; to celebrate, Clarkson meets with Kaleb to hang a wheat sheaf on an oak beam in an older barn, while Kaleb shows off his new haircut. Clarkson messes up hanging the wheat sheaf and attempts to correct it; Kaleb states he would like to help, but having been shot in the leg by a friend with a .22 caliber air rifle, he couldn't help Clarkson, who manages on his own. Clarkson's next conversation is with Charlie, who is ready to discuss how much revenue he had generated from the recent harvest. Charlie breaks the news to Clarkson that this year's harvest generated £90,000 less than the last year from crop sales alone, shocking Clarkson. Slowly going through the costs and crunching numbers, Charlie reveals that his total profit in his first year of farming was a mere £144.
Despite the presence of subsidies as informed by Charlie, Clarkson feels defeated, having worked "bloody hard" all year, only to receive a paltry profit; he deduces that even with subsidies and grants added in, he would have been far better off selling his possessions, putting they money in the bank and living off the interest, but despite this, he enjoyed every single minute of it, doing numerous things he thought he would have never been able to do, such as being a sheep farmer, tractor driver, shopkeeper, engineer and conservationist among others, all in the company of Clarkson's helpers, described as Diddly Squat's "endlessly happy, endlessly dysfunctional family".
Clarkson sets up a picnic to celebrate the harvest and invites Charlie, Gerald, Kaleb and Lisa to celebrate with him. At the picnic, he ponders about whether it was worth him continuing in this line of work for a paltry daily salary or go back to his old life in London; Kaleb immediately suggests Clarkson go back to London while providing feeble justifications for his opinions, to the amusement of the others. Charlie and Lucy feel that Clarkson would be much happier staying in Chipping Norton and continue farming; Clarkson agrees. As they admire the view, Clarkson thanks Gerald, Kaleb and Charlie for their help over the past year and for being patient with him, and states that he's going to get into the tractor and have Kaleb help him cultivate more crops. Gerald quizzically remarks that he thought Clarkson would be going to a party in the evening, to the rapturous laughter of the Diddly Squat family.
Tropes featured in the episode:
- Affectionate Nickname: Clarkson refers to Simon as "Jesus".
- Callback: Clarkson drives the MFB from The Grand Tour to the farm shop and makes reference to the episode A Massive Hunt.
- Cool Car: The MFB, being a modified Bentley Continental GT.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: Wayne, one of Clarkson's rams, dies of a twisted intestine.
- Didn't Think This Through: Clarkson tries to store both the barley and rapeseed together, as well as neglecting to call for more than one truck to transport his harvested barley.
- "Everybody Laughs" Ending: The episode (and by extension, the season) ends with hearty laughter from Charlie and the others.
- Karma Houdini: Clarkson never really got any real comeuppance for the stunt he pulled on Kaleb's truck as it rained the next day.
- The Unintelligible: Gerald, as usual. Played up to eleven when he speaks into a walkie-talkie.
