I am very cold tonight. And this isn’t just the usual me complaining about the guy in the office who keeps the air conditioning on too cold either (he wasn’t in today). This is really cold.

The greenhouse seems to have helped some of the plants, particularly the parsley which looks quite lively. I’m not sure the salad leaves will ever recover from the hurricane last week, but there are definitely about 10 leaves that are still growing. Let’s be positive here.

I figured the two to rescue were the tarragon and the basil. Basil is native to Iran and India so while -2 degrees Celsius on my balcony can’t quite replicate that, I decided the closest I could get was the window sill in the second bedroom/music room/den/study/computer room (the room title is still under intense negotiation since the move). I’m not going to lie, they don’t look great. Hopefully I can nurture them back to something better. Although in their defense, I did pillage them for leaves very recently.

The tarragon’s stems are quite sturdy so it is definitely surviving. The leaves however are a little bit discoloured in places and very limp. I had been reading that I should have been taking the top 10cm or so off the tarragon regularly enough. I blame the lack of recipes. It should die down in winter anyway, although you can split the roots and plant a root cluster inside for new shoots in the winter. I just might do that. Not today though.

I decided to take the ends of the tarragon as it is to at least conserve the considerable growth there. Apparently drying leads to mold so I resolved to freeze them.

I have heard of this done before for basil and people wondering what to do with all their basil when they don’t want to make 2 pints of pesto. (luckily I don’t have this problem)

I followed method two on about.com. They use seven steps but it boils down (figuratively) to this:

1. Freeze chopped tarragon in an ice cube tray, half filled with water.
2. When frozen, top up with water and freeze again.

The half filling is to stop the tarragon floating to the top you see. This holds for any non woody leafy vegetable so it’s good to know and I might do it in the future with basil or parsley. It’s undergoing freezer stage one as I type and I’ve included some photos of the process so far below: