IT was the land of the giants yesterday at a top North East horticultural show.

The event, now established in its second year as a national show attracting more than 400 entrants from across Britain, features a Heaviest Vegetable section.

That saw John Pearson from Hetton-le-Hole, Sunderland, break the world record for the heaviest leek with a 20Ib 5oz specimen.

Other weighty winners were a 107Ib marrow, a 54Ib cabbage, a 16Ib 4oz onion and a 4Ib 5oz tomato.

It was a third world record for John in a 40-year leek growing career.

In 2002 he set a new world record for a stand of two pot leeks at the CIU show in Gateshead, which was only broken earlier this month by Alan Davison of Blyth at the Northumberland CIU event at Cramlington.

John’s world record for three leeks, set at Ashington nine years ago, still stands.

This year John bought a machine used for weighing suitcases and installed it in his greenhouse to check his leeks.

He said: “I’m very pleased to have set a new record at what is a beautiful show. It is a fantastic event. “