Cicada Seeds

06/09/2026

What a treat to visit this special farm in the Japanese countryside! Many thanks to for hosting me and my 7(!) friends, and showing us how they grow and propagate chorogi, aka crosnes or Chinese artichoke.

The farm is located in a small community near Himeji City in Hyogo Prefecture. Jin, Yuzu, and Mr and Mrs Hashimoto graciously agreed to let us visit to talk about chorogi, and Mrs Hashimoto prepared us a delicious lunch of somen (a cold noodle dish) and onigiri made with rice from the community farm that Mr Hashimoto leads!

Jin specialized in chorogi in university, and one thing he found is that propagating the plants by stem cuttings reduces disease spread. In Japan, chorogi is sometimes eaten pickled for New Year’s, and Jin is working to make it more popular.

One shared issue facing chorogi production in both Japan and Canada is summer heatwaves as chorogi prefers cooler temperatures. We shared ideas about ways to shade the crop, such as companion planting with apios (hodoimo) or Chinese yam (nagaimo).

Jin and Yuzu started farming in this area because of a program to get young people to move to the area, and they were paired with the Hashimoto family in an internship. It sounds like the program has been successful, and could serve as a good example for ageing farming communities in Canada as well.

One more lucky thing about our visit was that Mrs Hashimoto is a coffee enthusiast, and made us amazing coffees and even showed us how to roast the beans with a special ceramic pot!

This visit has been a highlight of the trip and I’m looking forward to staying connected with these wonderful folks.

05/29/2026

Cicada Seeds is going to Japan and I want your recommendations!

I’ve been so impressed to learn about the celebration of perennial vegetables in Japan. There seems to be a strong appreciation of sansai (mountain vegetables), many of which are now cultivated instead of foraged, and many are perennial!

Many regions in Japan have similar climates to Canada so we can grow many of the same species. I would love to see how farms are growing these vegetables on a larger scale, since we are pretty slow to embrace these crops here in North America, despite their many benefits to climate, soil health, the growers, etc.

I’m leaving next week and would love your recommendations. In particular I’m looking for farms growing the following cool-climate perennial veg:
- groundnut, hodoimo (Apios spp.)
- hosta, gibōshi/urui (Hosta spp.)
- udo (Aralia cordata)
- mountain yam, nagaimo/yamaimo (Dioscorea spp.)

Also open to other sansai or just cool natural farms in general, farmers markets, or restaurants using these vegetables. I’ll be in Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto mainly but happy to travel. Also a sweet Japanese friend is travelling with us and willing to translate 🥹

Pictured is one of my favourite root veggies, crosne aka chorogi in Japan!

05/11/2026

If you’re into edible food plants, you won’t want to miss this event! Bramblewood Nursery, Denman Island Heritage Apples, and Cicada Seeds are coming together to offer a diverse selection of fruit & nut trees, perennial vegetables, flowers, and more. Many are rare varieties you’d have a hard time sourcing anywhere else. Hope to see you April 25 in Errington!

Cicada Seeds will be running farm tours at 11 and 1. See a small-scale, no-till, perennial vegetable seed farm in the beginning stages! Bring your questions.

Please share with your gardening, farming, permaculture, etc friends on Vancouver Island 😊

05/01/2026

I hear people line up down the street for this sale, so get here early for the best selection! Saturday 9am-1pm Yambury Road, Qualicum. My booth will be under the beautiful wisteria 💕

04/30/2026

I’ll be at the Qualicum Beach Garden Club Plant Sale on Saturday from 9am-1pm! 525 Yambury Road. I will have my seeds and a great selection of potted perennial vegetables.

See what seeds are currently in stock at www.cicadaseeds.ca

Hope to see you there!

04/29/2026

Thanks so much for these great photos, and to all who came out on Saturday! It was so fun- we will definitely do it again!

04/09/2026

I was honoured to be invited onto the Food Garden Life Podcast with Steven Biggs recently to chat about perennial vegetables. The episode just dropped!

We chatted about:
- Ways to use perennial vegetables in a home-garden setting
- Why perennial vegetables are a game-changer for sustainable gardening
- My top perennial vegetable recommendations

And we also take a tangent to discuss how my new ‘Venus of Willendorf’ tomato came to be

Whether you’re curious about food forests, edible perennials, or just want to try something new, tune in! And please let me know your thoughts.

Learn how to grow perennial vegetables (edible perennial crops) in a Canadian garden with Michalina Hunter of Cicada Seeds. Tips on perennial vegetable crops, food forests, and sustainable gardening.

03/16/2026

Kareno is a dear member of our seed and farm community, and she’s battling cancer. Please give what you can to support her healing journey! ❤️

Our beloved friend Kareno Hawbolt is facing a health crisis - we are rallying around her and … Claire Hutton needs your support for Healing Support for Kareno

03/12/2026

My new tomato variety is officially pledged to the Open Source Seed Initiative!!! This means it can be freely grown and sold by the people, and NEVER patented by corporations.

This tomato is called Venus of Willendorf, and it looks and tastes spectacular. Super sweet flavour balanced with umami, with subtle notes of mulling spice when fully ripe. It’s an unexpected surprise to get such a punch of flavour from a green tomato. I’m grateful she appeared in my garden!

Here’s the story: In 2023 I noticed one plant in my Green Grape tomato patch with pointy fruit. I saved seeds and grew them out the following year, and all of them were exactly the same, which was surprising, since usually in the second generation after a cross the traits start to segregate and every plant makes a different tomato. I repeated the process the following year and they were all uniform again! Finally in 2025 I did a big 70 foot row at my lease site to produce seed, and happily they remained uniform.

Because of the instant uniformity I think that this variety is a mutation, not an accidental cross as I first suspected. Pretty lucky that it’s such an insanely delicious tomato! It’s the best farm snack with a sprig of pepicha or cilantro 👌

I showed these tomatoes to my farmer friend Evann a few years ago, and she noted how the curvy shape reminded her of the Venus of Willendorf, a bodacious Paleolithic female figurine found in a cave in Austria in 1908. I loved that comparison, and the name stuck!

I’m really happy to have pledged this variety to the Open Source Seed Initiative (OSSI) to keep it and its progeny out of corporate control. Free the seed!

Seeds are available on my website, cicadaseeds.ca

03/10/2026

I’ve extended the deadline to apply for the collaborative perennial vegetable research trial! This trial is specifically for market gardeners- I’m hoping we can gather info together about growing perennial vegetables for profit, and figuring out how to integrate them into an intensive growing system.

There are many advantages to growing perennial vegetables such as improved carbon sequestration, soil health, farm ecology, and nutrition, and they are potentially less work to maintain than annuals. They’re becoming more widely adopted by gardeners, but can they be grown by market gardeners and farmers to feed the masses? Let’s figure it out together! 

I’m Michalina at Cicada Seeds and I’m interested in working with farmers to grow the body of knowledge around growing perennial vegetables on farms for profit. I’d like to see their wider adoption because of their many benefits, and the ability of some species to grow in “marginal” areas, like flooded or dry land.

Despite these advantages, there isn’t a lot of data on growing them in an efficient and profitable way (in Turtle Island/North America at least). Is it possible to grow them at scale? What’s the best way to plant, manage, harvest, package, market, and sell them to different types of customers? Which varieties thrive where? What pests and diseases pop up in different climates and how can we manage them?

This trial is open to farmers who can acquire seeds or plants of perennial vegetables, anywhere in the world.

⛓️‍💥 Read more at my link in bio to learn about eligibility, suggested varieties, and how to apply. Or go to www.cicadaseeds.ca and head to the BLOG.

🌼 Farmers who fill out a survey or complete an interview with me at the end of the 2026 growing season will receive a $50 gift certificate to Cicada Seeds as a thank you.

🙏 Please tag or send to a farmer who may want to participate!