iafter living in california for most of my life before moving to israel 7 years ago, it never occurred to me that something as easily obtainable a sgreen shiso would be so difficult ot obtain in israel. the common myth here is, it is IMPOSSIBLE t grow shiso in israel. there are many jpnese restaurants here (all terrible but that is off the subject) and all of them bitterly lamented to me for past 7 years about impossibility to grow shiso in isreal. well, i ordered seeds from u.k. sourse and although to be fair, it took me almost a year, countless re-orders of seeds, experiments, etc. to successfully germinate these seeds. to make a long story slightly less long, after i heated the soil using a "shabbas heating plate" (finally a good use) to between 30=40C with the seeds uncovered on moist, rich, soil or medium, i successfully germinated and grew to healthy maturity 80% of the seedlings from the original seed count. as far as i know i am the first person to be able to grow ao-shiso successfully in isreal,m i did not feel it was that dificult, making certain orchids flower again successive years is much more difficult, anyway i digress. my question is, although i know that perilla (ao and ako) is apparently an annual, i know that chile pepers are also supposed to be an annual, and i have chilis (jalapeno and serrano) that i have kept alive overwinter and then they grew back and are continuing to produce the quantity and quality of newly grown chilis. is this possible for green perilla? (ao-shiso_ thanks!
