'Virginia Beach Feral' Shiso (Perilla)

Perilla frutescens

Origin: East Asia via Virginia Beach

Improvement status: Landrace

Seeds per packet: ~40

Germination tested 12/2025: 40%

Life cycle: Annual

This is a feral green shiso found growing in the Virginia Beach area by our new friend Beatriz Balderas, whom I (Nate) met while helping to lead an all-day seed workshop for the Virginia Association for Biological Farming in Norfolk, Virginia, alongside fellow members of Ujamaa Cooperative Farming Alliance and its Ira Wallace Seed School. Beatriz was the only attendee who brought seeds to be processed during the event, an armload of still-green shiso stems laden with seeds. It was lovely to have the anise/basil/licorice scent of shiso wafting through the room, getting stronger the closer one got to Beatriz.

After processing them, it was clear there were far more seeds than any one person would need, so Beatriz gave me the seeds and asked if we'd like them for the EFN catalog. Upon seeing her photos of the leaves and realizing it was a nice large-leaf type (good for culinary applications like wrapping other foods or using it as a edible utensil to grab foods, as is traditionally done in parts of East Asia), I said we'd be more than happy to have it! It's also clearly a heavy seed producer, so no doubt is good for producing shiso's characteristally tasty edible oil (similar in flavor to sesame oil, and indeed often marketed as "wild sesame" oil).

GROWING TIPS: Direct sow after danger of frost has passed, or start indoors a few weeks earlier. Obviously shiso is prone to naturalizing, so do your best to harvest every seed unless you want it in your garden for many years. If it does begin to settle in against your wishes, you can get it of it by diligently weeding out seedlings for the next couple years.