June is when the perilla plants in your garden plot climb to knee height. The leaves are coming in generously, but it's easy to hesitate: which leaf do you pick first, and is it okay to leave that leggy stem alone? With perilla, the order you harvest in — plus a single pinch — makes a big difference in how many leaves you'll gather all summer long.
Start at the Bottom, Two Leaves at a Time
On a perilla plant, the lower leaves grow first and age first. So the right way to harvest is from the bottom up. Pick any leaf that has opened to about half the size of your palm, stem and all, and leave the four or five young leaves at the top of the stalk in place. Those leaves need to keep photosynthesizing for new ones to keep coming.
Perilla leaves grow in opposite pairs, two to a node, so if you pick both leaves of a pair together, the plant keeps its even shape. Leaves that have aged and turned coarse are hard to enjoy, so don't put it off — pick them while they're good. This is a crop that grows back as fast as you pick it: the plants you harvest most often are the ones that end up the bushiest.
Pinch Once at Five or Six Nodes
Once a plant reaches around 30 centimeters tall, with five or six nodes of true leaves, pinch off the growing tip at the very top of the stem with your fingertips. This is called pinching, or topping. With the upward growth stopped, side shoots emerge from every leaf axil, the plant spreads outward, and the number of leaves you can harvest goes up.
Skip the pinch and the plant shoots up as a single tall stalk — fewer leaves, and quick to topple in the wind. When the side shoots have grown five or six nodes of their own, pinch their tips one more time. Twice is plenty; cut too often and the plant takes a long time to recover.
See a Flower Stalk? Remove It Early
Perilla is a crop that flowers as the days grow shorter. Past midsummer — around early August, the traditional start of autumn on the Korean calendar — small flower buds begin to form at the stem tips. Once flowering starts, the leaves get smaller, lose their fragrance, and turn stiff. If you want to keep harvesting leaves, remove flower stalks as soon as you spot them. Wait too long and the whole plant shifts into setting seed, and the leaf harvest is effectively over. That said, if you'd like to collect perilla seeds in the fall, or flower clusters for pickling, it's worth leaving a few stalks in place.
Pick in the Morning, Store Upright
Pick leaves in the morning, before the sun climbs high, while they're still full of moisture and tender. Leave the harvested leaves unwashed: wrap them in a paper towel, tuck them into an airtight container, and stand them upright with the stems pointing down in the refrigerator — they'll stay fresh for close to a week. On days when the harvest runs big, try making soy-marinated perilla leaves (kkaennip-jangajji). Twenty leaves fill a container of this classic Korean side dish, and the new growth will be ready to pick again in a week.
So when you head out to the garden today, start by picking two leaves from the bottom — and if a plant has reached knee height, give its topmost shoot that one pinch.
