Does anyone know or have any tips about the ambitious prospect of growing capers in Ontario? I've researched a bit. No local plants are available from nurseries. Seeds have a very low germination rate, need stratification. They need rocky/sandy/gravelly soil. In Ontario (ZONE 5), they would not survive outdoors in winter and would need to be brought indoors. They are ideally being grown for their buds (eating). I am thinking of some sort of container that has many sizes of large and small gravel-- the main objective being that I can move it indoors in the fall and hopefully have it d=survive indoors in the winter. All very ambitious, but possibly doable?
Hey Chiara, from what I've read here: Caper - Capparis spinosa it seems like you'll also want to try to keep it in a low-humidity environment during the summer -- is that possible in your part of Ontario? Looks like signficant production after 3 years.
Thank you Daniel! Good to hear from you, here! I love that this forum exists by the way! Ok, thank you for this link, it has some good pointers. It's for a friend actually. Low humidity may be yet another challenge with this, but at least the location is not near a big lake. (1 hour north of Toronto).
Richter's Herbs supplies both Capparis spinosa; and a Caucasian variant, Capparis herbacea, which might like your conditions better...
