Our Capers

OUR FARM

Queensland’s own chemical-free, Bunya Red Farm Capers are grown in the rich red soil looking out to the Bunya Mountains in the South Burnett. With our Mediterranean climate we chose to diversify our 160 acre property to include capers. They share the land with a peanut/sorghum/wheat/corn crop rotation, cattle, alpacas, a veggie patch, guinea fowl, and our loved cats and dogs.

Bunya Red Farm Capers are handpicked, washed and salted with Australian sea salt. After curing, they are hand graded, packed, ready for you to enjoy. Great in salads, pasta, on pizza, eggs benedict, smoked salmon… imagine how capers can add that zing to your recipes – fresh and fruity, with an intensity of flavour. Yum!

Caperberries are also handpicked, washed and put into a brine, made with Australian sea salt. After curing, these too are hand graded, and packed with Granite Belt white wine vinegar. Caperberries can be used in cooking, or chopped into salads, or just added as an alternative to an olive on a cheese plate with a wine!

What are they?

Capers are the unopened flower bud of the caper plant (Scientific name: Capparis spinosa). The plant is a low growing, but well spread out bush. The plants have grown well over the years. Their size is not quite the expected height of about 1 metre, but they do spread to about 3.5 – 4 metres by the end of the season. They are not nasturtiums.

The caper plant originates from a Mediterranean climate. Here in the South Burnett, we experience cool winters (as low as -4 degrees in 2012) and hot dry summers (usually high 30’s to low 40 degrees in December to February).

Our caper season in Queensland runs from September to March/April, if it is still hot enough. As the temperatures cool into autumn, the plants growth slows and it gets ready for winter. By mid-winter the caper plants are pruned back quite hard, to wait for the warmth of Spring to wake up again.

As the caper bush grows out during each season, the lower branches provide its own mulch cover on the ground. Perfect growing conditions produces more capers than can be picked. The buds quickly grow quite big. These are left on the bush, and they burst into flower. The flowers are beautiful, white petals with many long purple stamens. Each flower only lasts for 1 day. (Here today, gone tomorrow).

If the flower has been pollinated, it sets an oblong caperberry (the fruit) which can be picked after 4 to 6 weeks on the bush. There are lots of bees in the caper paddock each season doing a great job. It takes 4 – 6 weeks to grow into a caperberry, ready to be handpicked. If the caperberry is allowed to grow too large and round, the seeds within are bitter and hard. Not too good for eating.

The young shoots and leaves can also been eaten either fresh or preserved.

How do they grow?

On a gentle ridge of Bunya Red Farm we had cultivated an area of about 2 acres to plant our capers. The rich red soil is well drained with a pH of 6.4 – 6.8 across the paddock. Our first 150 caper plants (trial plot) were planted on raised mounds on 11th & 12th November 2011. The slope allowed us to run water direct to the plants by gravity fed drippers.

We were the first to grow a commercial crop of capers in Queensland.

As they went into the prepared holes, we added extra natural fertilizers and lime. Each row had a different mixture, and one row had none at all (Row 7). This was our test row, to see how our plants would manage on the existing nutrients in the soil alone. Experimenting with NatraMin Cal-S, Seamungus and alpaca poo, each were chosen for their benefits for soil and plant nutrition. After a slow start, but 3 years in, Row 7 had caught up to all the other rows for growth and production. Initially the rows were mulched with aged lucerne hay over weed matting.

Caper plants do not like wet feet or humidity. They are better suited to the dry, less humid conditions in the South Burnett. Sometimes it does manage to rain in summer. At those times we only get an average caper crop, as the plants slow their growth and production. However, when it does rain, the peanuts (summer crop) are very happy and produce better. The beauty of diversification.

The caper paddock has expanded now to over 400 plants.

Health Benefits

Capers are very low in calories and has 23 calories per 100g. They contain anti-oxidants, phytonutrients and vitamins A, K, niacin. Niacin can help lower cholesterol.

Harvest