Baytree Garden Centre's Mark Cox explains why the team knows its onions
In his latest Out in the Garden column, Baytree Garden Centre's Mark Cox explains why there has been cause for celebration...
Mr McKay and I have been busy preparing for the show of the century this week. On Sunday we endeavoured to find our five best onions. We tried to ensure that each onion chosen was uniform in shape, of similar size, colour and when I say similar I mean as close to identical as possible.
As the day progressed we revisited these five and replaced them with those that we thought were better matched until at exactly 4.28pm we had arrived at the perfect grouping of five.
Our chosen onions were now ready to begin their dressing procedure so, on Monday morning, we gave the onions a gentle-but-thorough wash to remove any soil and dirt from their skins. At this point, if Mr McKay could have given his onions a facial I’m pretty sure he would have - these onions were going to get the full spa treatment.
Once clean, we dried them with a soft cloth and gently dusted them with a thin layer of talcum powder. They were then locked away in Mr McKay’s kitchen pantry.
On Tuesday, we washed the talcum powder off the onion skins with all the reverence of a state coronation. One by one they were soaked in warm water for around five minutes. The actual time is a secret that I am sworn to uphold.
This short soaking allows the neck and shoulders of the onion bulb to soften to the point where the stalk can be neatly folded over and tied with a small length of raffia. With a sharp pair of scissors we trimmed the excess stalk off below the knot. The real skill is folding the remaining onions in exactly the same place.
Thursday soon came, meaning it was the day that we would compete for the biggest prize in Prison Warden Gardening – Best Onions. All of the effort and hard work me and Mr McKay had put into growing the best onions, it would all come down to the opinion of an expert judging panel. For transportation Mr McKay had invested in one of those aluminium brief cases with black shaped foam inside, ours had five perfect little circles which made our onions look like small organic hand grenades.
Mr Bronson, Mr McKay’s arch enemy, was already at the competition venue when we arrived. As we approached the competition staging area we could see our space. I carefully lifted each onion grenade out of their secure transportation vehicle (the briefcase) to which Mr McKay then formed them like a master painter into a perfect triangle onto the black felt lined plate that Mrs McKay had made in Craft club on Wednesday. There was no time to sit back and admire our work as we were soon asked to leave the area for judging.
After an hour the results were in. We’d only gone and blooming done it!
Mr McKay was now the proud owner of a Prison Warden’s Gardening Association Gold Medal for Best Onions.
Overcome with emotion, Mr McKay shook my hand and said we should go and celebrate. I said to Mr McKay that we couldn’t celebrate as I was still at Her Majesty’s pleasure, to which he then let slip that my case had been heard several months ago and all of the charges against had been thrown out and that I’d been a free man since July.
The soon-to-be not-so-present Mrs Cox, it would appear, had cut a deal with the authorities for an extra couple of weeks of peace and quiet.