Garden Capers

December 4, 2004

By Mary Giambalvo, Master Gardener

What does chicken piccata have in common with your garden? Plenty, if you have a caper plant (Capparis spinosa). Capers, those tiny peppery buds we buy in little jars to flavor Mediterranean dishes, got their start on a tough but attractive plant that can take what our climate can dish out.

The arid, rocky hillsides of Sicily and Greece are dotted with wild caper bushes. The leathery leaves are rounded and attractive, and the plant will trail nicely down a bank, or mound itself upright with drooping stems. It makes a great hillside cover in less than hospitable conditions.

Once established on the Central Coast, it will generally get along on occasional rainfall and very little supplemental watering, if any. It can even survive a cold spell, occasionally dying back to the ground and returning in the spring. It should do extremely well in all parts of San Luis Obispo County from seaside to inland valleys as long as it has soil that drains very well.

While caper bushes will germinate from seed, it may take a number of seeds to produce only a few bushes, and they will grow slowly. Fortunately, plants can be ordered from some local nurseries. Wild caper bushes often have sharp spines, but the bushes I have purchased locally are a spineless variety, and are, therefore, painless.

In the spring, the caper bush prepares to make small white flowers. The capers we buy pickled in a jar are actually the unopened buds of those flowers. At budding time, the capers can be harvested daily and dropped in vinegar in the refrigerator for curing for a couple of weeks. The smaller the buds, the more desirable are the capers. Don’t taste them as you pluck them from the bush. That could bring your enthusiasm to a bitter halt.

If you would like to see the flowers develop and, thereby, forego harvesting the buds, you will be rewarded with pretty white flowers with delicate petals.  The flowers last less than a day, but it is still not too late to get something edible from the plant.  In place of the spent flower, the plant will develop a berry. Similar in size to a large grape or olive, the berry can be brined or pickled, making a delicious snack or even a garnish for that chicken piccata.

University of California Cooperative Extension Master Gardener Volunteers can provide additional gardening information upon request. Call the San Luis Obispo office at 781-5939 on Mondays and Thursdays from 1 to 5 PM, the Arroyo Grande office at 473-7190 on Wednesdays from 9 AM to 1 PM, or the Paso Robles office at 237-3100 on Wednesdays from 9 AM to Noon.  The San Luis Obispo Master Gardener website is at http://groups.ucanr.org/slomg/. Questions can be e-mailed to mgsanluisobispo@ucdavis.edu.