So I like tarragon and I like chicken salad and I especially like tarragon in my chicken salad. I grow a lot of fresh herbs to cook with, some of them all year round and in the last few years I’ve tried growing varieties of tarragon. I tried French, I tried Mexican, I tried plain old no name whatever they had at the the garden center tarragon. They all tasted like blades of lawn grass. I always have to run out and go buy some because I grow crummy tarragon.
Apparently so does almost everyone else. I had to go to three or four stores this week because I wanted to make chicken salad and I didn’t want it to taste like lawn clippings. I resorted to opening little clamshell packets of tarragon to taste the herb until I finally found a store that didn’t have tarragon as crappy as mine.
What could be the source of this problem and why is it so widespread? Hybridization, cross-pollination? I thought it might be conditions they were grown in but it’s become pretty widespread.
I think I just lost a plant;(fingers crossed it will come back) and am sharing this question on food gardening!
Sounds like The Jalapeño Problem.
You need to use French tarragon, and grow them from cuttings (or a seedling or an exisiting division), never use seeds.
I haven’t had the jalapeno problem except that they’re not as hot as I’d like. And my poblanos are kind of few in number.
I always grew French and one time I tried Mexican. I don’t have cuttings because I don’t have an indoor greenhouse or an outdoor heated one so I’ve been buying them from nurseries. But none of that would explain why every store I go to has lousy tasting tarragon just like mine and the one I found that had a hint of licorice was weaker than it should be.
I think this is an industry problem not just a Susan problem which was my original theory until I started trying to find decent tarragon in stores and failed
That is exactly The Jalapeño Problem.
Gresham’s Law of tarragon: Bad tarragon drives out good. Tarragon from seed is usually flavorless. The well flavored plants are propagated from other plants with flavor, a far more expensive process. There is one store near me that has a good source, but I still crush a leaf from the bunch I plan to buy to see if my selection is flavored. I used to grow a very nice tarragon plant at home but it died out during a particularly cold winter. With climate change, maybe I should try again.
Aha! I think peppers like it really hot weather wise. I also think they probably have more zip when you don’t have too much rain. Kind of like the problem with waterlogged and tasteless tomatoes when they get poured on regularly by rain as they’re fruiting. I hate those years.
From Food Institute
Well that’s what I started doing in the stores and they can arrest me if they want to. In a few months I’ll be doing it at the best nurseries I know. I have not grown it from seed ever.
Nah, they’re bred all wimpy-like on purpose, as per @shrinkrap’s link. Boo hiss. I just go with Scotch bonnets / habaneros, or Thai bird peppers — at least those tend to deliver a reliable level of heat.
My luck with tarragon from French and Russian seeds has not been great.
Even the little plants from the nursery aren’t that great.
I suspect it’s the climate in Ontario, compared to the climate in the Mediterranean, that’s causing my homegrown tarragon to be meh.
I think they’ve done the same to the hatch chilis, too, whereas the poblanos which are usually Milder have been getting hotter. My husband grew some ghost peppers last summer and I who love some heat bit into the tip of one and realized I had met my match. I ran back to the food pantry where I volunteer because he had donated a whole lot from his community garden bed and our clients might go home with them not knowing what they were
Serranos are a sure bet but Fresnos for the win!
For poblanos I find Tiburon and Baron to be reasonably spicy for a poblano.
Are Fresnos that hot? I thought they were a milder pepper in the big scheme of things.
Not as hot as a serrano but more predictable than a jalapeno. Plus I like the flavor and color.
I learned to love Scotch bonnets with my first sampling of Walkerswood spicy jerk marinade. I should try growing those. I always have multiple bottles of the marinade in my house because one year they stopped producing it and I found the last case of it available on the internet and when they shipped it to me all the bottles got broken they said and it was returned to them. Now I buy a dozen at a time. Too scary not having it in the house!
They’re one of my favorite peppers. I love how floral & fruity they are, along with the heat.
