Since this report was originally posted! The Great Onion Challenge Weigh-In (Originally planned to take place at the show but postponed because of the dry weather) was held at the Thatched Cottage on 1st September.

To be eligible for the title the Onions had to be grown from some of the 150 exhibition sets grown by David Horton and supplied to competitors in March.

About a dozen volunteers took up the challenge and duly arrived, with their entries securely bagged up, at the Thatched Cottage, on September the 1st for the official weigh in and "refreshments".

According to reports received from the adjudicator there were some very dubious tactics employed by certain villagers who were previously highly respected in the community.

Due to the current enthusiasm for litigation no names will be featured here but I have it on good authority that a previous Farringdon Summer Show Champion had included some non vegetable ballast with in the shape of a small boulder and another respected member of the Horticultural society had bulked up a pathetic shallot sized offering with a suspiciously abundant forest of top growth.

However after suitable discussion and a certain amount of Arbitration and quite a lot refreshment the weigh in commenced with the weight of each onion being secretly recorded to keep up the suspense.

The results were as follows: (in reverse order)

Mr Keith Johnson 96 gms
(Described as "Pathetic" on the Judges notes)

Mr Tim Charrington 283 gms
(Net weight after removal of foreign objects)

3rd Place: 382 gms - David Horton

2nd Place: 416 gms - Judy Ross

1st Place: Winner of the 2018 Great Onion Trophy, and Grand Onion Champion Iain Ross,
whose prize winning entry weighed in at 421 gms
(seen here receiving the magnificent Trophy from Horticultural Society Chair Phyll Watts)
Thanks to Official Adjudicator David Horton, for kindly providing the information and a picture of the Champion as your reporter ( Yet another black mark! ) was swanning around Alresford Show, totally unaware of the momentous events taking place in Church Road!

FHS Summer Show 2018

Yet another warm sunny day saw the horticulturists of Farringdon heading towards the Church with their entries for the 2018 Farringdon Horticultural Society Summer Show which was held on the 28th July.

Considering the near drought conditions over the last few weeks there was a fair number of entries this year although the weigh-in for the Biggest Onion Competition (for specimens grown from the same batch of sets) was postponed until the 1st September (see above) as the plants are desperately in need of some moisture to bulk up to their full potential.

The Judges were already moving through the classes by the time your reporter arrived and it was apparent that the two main protagonists in the postponed Great Onion Challenge,
(See top of page) had been, in the exhibition class at least, defeated by trio of purple specimens from Gaston Lane.

One collection of Happy Prizewinners on the day (Above, from left to right) Chris Perry, J. Constable, Mo Biggs, *Karen* Vine, , and Cally and Overall Champion David Horton.

* I know it's not Karen in this picture but Woody was there as her official representative to pick up her prizes.

More class prizewinners Mesdames Roe, Rowe and Boulton with Horti Chair Phyll Watts

Section A: Novice Class