Favourite potatoes - Kestrel
Kestrel is a Jack Dunnett variety, brought out in 1992. It's popular with
gardeners because it has some slug resistance and is good for showing.
The flavour is good, too, though the unusual colouring (basically
white, but with bluish-purple eyes) made the supermarkets think twice
about promoting it. Blight resistance (foliage) about 4; second early.
It now seems to be gaining in popularity; I've seen it in M & S.
Kestrel is a good chipping potato, and J.D. reports in his book (1999) that
there is commercial interest in Australia and South Africa as well as
England.
Pictures:
Flowers
Tubers
There is a blue variant of this, discovered by Alan Romans, known as Blue Kestrel. I am growing this in pots in 2010. It is a good yielder; very clean tubers, and looks a bit bluer than in the picture (below).....
The flavour is similar to ordinary Kestrel; if anything, a little bit stronger, I guess because of the extra skin pigment. Yield in containers - about 2.5lb from a four inch deep 2.5 gallon tray.
Seed tubers of Blue Kestrel can be obtained from JBA Seed Potatoes by clicking the link below:
For ordinary Kestrel seed tubers, click the next link:
Nigel Deacon / Diversity website
