NOTE ON SHIPPING TIME: Tarragon will not ship in freezing temperatures. Your order may not ship until March. If you want a specific shipping time please contact me. Otherwise I will use my best judgement on when to ship. For instance Florida might ship immediately, Minnesota will need to wait.

There are some things everyone needs to know about tarragon.

Many herbs can be dried and maintain their flavor. Oregano, thyme, rosemary are prime examples. Other herbs cannot. Basil, parsley, and tarragon are quite frankly worthless when dried. Their flavor compounds are too volatile to survive the drying process and every time I see or hear of someone buying these herbs dried I cringe at the wasted money. If you want basil, parsley, or tarragon for your cooking you need to grow it yourself, (or buy the fresh herbs at the store for even more money than they charge for dried herbs). Luckily all three are easy to grow, and tarragon is even perennial in much of the country.

The second thing you need to understand about French Tarragon, which is the main tarragon used in cooking, is that it is a cultivar, not a species. You cannot grow it from seed and have it taste the same, you can also not sub in Russian Tarragon and have it taste the same. For the unique French Tarragon flavor you need to get a live plant that was cloned off another French Tarragon plant to preserve the genetics. This is the same reason why apple seeds will not grow trees that look like the mother plant. Asexual reproduction is the only way to preserve identical genetics.

So I have real french tarragon live plants. Tarragon is known sometimes as the "egg" herb, it pairs very well with eggs. Try it in an omelet. Or I mix it in hashbrowns which I intend to put a over easy egg on top of. I also mix it with breakfast sausage. If you ever go through the process of making a scotch egg, you can't beat it for inclusion in the breading or sausage. Finally actual, real, eggs benedict requires bearnaise sauce, and bearnaise sauce requires French tarragon. Every place out there that serves eggs benedict with a hollandaise sauce, while also delicious, are doing so because the relative difficult or expense of sourcing fresh tarragon is making them bail on the bearnaise. Bearnaise also is great on steak btw. So if you want to experience eggs benedict the way it was meant to be experienced (and you do, trust me, you do), you need bearnaise sauce, and you probably need to make it yourself, which means you need to grow your own tarragon.

Have I convinced you yet?

French tarragon is hardy to at least zone 5, it can survive in a pot in my barely zone 7 location. It will die back to the ground in the winter typically, you can bring it inside or into a greenhouse and keep it going. It likes a good amount of sun, but not heat, it does not like too much water. Most herbs develop better flavor when slightly water starved. It can get leggy, but otherwise doesn't get much taller than 12 inches. It benefits from pruning, which is perfect, because you will be nipping off leaves for eating. If the clump gets too big you can divide with your shovel as you would a hosta. I would recommend buying two, just in case one dies you don't want to be without tarragon. I wouldn't expect to eat too much of it the first year while it gets established, by the second year it will be vigorous enough to supply all your needs, and the third year you will be giving some away.

I ship in 2.5 inch pots or larger. Every potted plant I sell has been inoculated with premium mycorrhizae fungi that forms a symbiotic relationship with the roots increasing plant vigor, once planted in your garden this fungi will spread to also benefit nearby plants.