Due to a number of complications the weigh-in for the 2021 Great Onion Competition, postponed from earlier this month, was held at the Thatched Cottage on September 25th, during the lunch break of the Farringdon Horticultural Society Summer Show.
All onions in the competition were grown from the same batch of seeds seeds planted by David Horton on Christmas Day last year
The seedlings which were protected from the weather, nurtured and fed and David was able to move a total of 220 plants into the cold frame towards the end of March this year.
With 43 potential contesters registered it was decided that everyone could have 5 plants, and these were duly distributed later in April.
As usual, some of the less successful contestants were claiming that the weather was against them and one or two previously successful entrants were peddling a scurrilous conspiracy theory that David had issued them with spring onion plants!
Amid much speculation 20 contestants turned up with their onions to be weighed and laid out for inspection. which left the Horton Onion Growing Department wondering what happened to the 23 who failed to show up!
This event is usually combined with the communal tasting of home made liqueurs, but this year, bearing in mind the possible consequences of a considerable number of lunchtime Liqueur charged competitors tottering across the road to see how their entries had fared in the Horticultural Show, the tasting was postponed until next year; by which time the entries will have reached a peak of maturity, exploded in the cellar of the brewer or in a worst case scenario, removed the paint from the cellar wall.
So in an unusually sober atmosphere the scales were pressed into action to find the winner which this year proved to be none other than Jenny Thompson, the first female winner of the competition whose entry tipped the scales at a whopping 1.740 Kg. ()
Andy Clegg took second place with a 1.612 Kg specimen and Iain & Judy Ross secured third place with their 1.568 Kg entry.