Chilipino Pepper Co

Chilipino Pepper Co Meet Aurea, aka Chilipino, the plant-loving nurse who has taken the spicy world by surprise!

Featured on the Hulu docuseries "Superhot: The Spicy World of Pepper People," she manages her garden and co-owns a thriving hot sauce company Grumpy Spice LLC!

08/13/2026

🥒 Easy Crunchy Vinegar Pickles

If you’ve ever had soggy homemade pickles, this method is for you. I use three simple tricks to guarantee crunch: fresh cucumbers soaked in ice water, removing the blossom ends, and adding tannin-rich leaves like bay or grape leaves.

Here’s the exact recipe and method:

🥒 Ingredients

• Fresh cucumbers
• Ice water (for soaking)
• 6 cups 5% distilled white vinegar
• 8 cups filtered water
• ½ cup canning salt
• 5 tablespoons sugar
• 1 tbsp peppercorns
• 1 tbsp mustard seeds
• 5 bay leaves
• Garlic cloves
• Fresh dill
• Red pepper flakes (optional heat)

🥒 Instructions

1. Prep cucumbers: Soak fresh cucumbers in ice water for 2 hours to firm them up.
2. Trim properly: Cut off both ends, especially the blossom end (this helps prevent soft pickles).
3. Make brine: Combine vinegar, water, salt, sugar, peppercorns, mustard seeds, and bay leaves. Bring to a rolling boil.
4. Pack jars: Add cucumbers, garlic, dill, grape leaves, and red pepper flakes into a clean sterilized jar.
5. Pour brine: Carefully pour the hot brine over the cucumbers, fully submerging them.
6. Seal & cool: Let cool, then refrigerate or process depending on your canning method.

Nothing beats that first bite of a CRUNCHY pickle!

08/12/2026

July 30 ➡️ August 12 🥒

I made these lacto-fermented pickles almost two weeks ago, and today they finally reached that perfect level of sourness I was waiting for. So into the fridge they go.

The difference between these and your typical vinegar pickle is that these weren’t made sour with vinegar. They fermented in a salt brine, where beneficial bacteria naturally produce the lactic acid that gives them that tangy flavor.

And that fermentation can also introduce live cultures that support gut health.

If you want the exact recipe and how I made them, I posted the whole process a few videos ago. Now I’m just looking forward to eating these with basically everything. 🥒

08/07/2026

This carrot may be forked, but it’ll taste just as good. 🥕

Forked carrots are usually your garden’s way of telling you something. In my case, it’s probably compacted soil from all the rain we’ve been having or my carrots needed a little more space. I’ll loosen my soil and thin my carrots more next time 😄

08/05/2026

Quality control is a full time job 😆 I spend 10% of my time gardening and 90% of my time “closely inspecting” the plants… by eating them 😂

08/04/2026

People give “green thumbs” way too much credit. 🌱

The best gardeners I know aren’t the ones who magically grow everything perfectly. They’re the ones who stay curious, keep learning, and aren’t afraid to try again when something doesn’t go as planned.

Every success builds confidence, and every setback teaches a lesson you can carry into the next planting.

If you’re just getting started, don’t compare your first season to someone else’s tenth. Ask questions, experiment, observe your garden, and enjoy the process. Before you know it, someone will probably be telling you that you have a green thumb too!

Happy gardening!

08/02/2026

Today’s garden haul was a good one! I picked Trionfo Violetto beans, Qing Bian flat beans, purple hyacinth beans, yellow summer squash, Korean zucchini (aehobak), rainbow okra, Early Girl tomatoes, kangkong, talbos ng kamote, shish*tos, Aonaga Jibai cucumbers, and a handful of pickling cucumbers.

No two harvests are ever the same, and that’s one of my favorite parts of growing food. Some days it’s just a handful of herbs, other days it’s enough to fill a basket like this.

Now it’s time to wash everything up and figure out what’s for dinner. Thanks for coming along with me. 💚

08/01/2026

August is here and it’s the beginning of your Fall garden! 🌱🍂

Save this as your August planting checklist, then adjust it based on your first frost date.

Week 1
• Carrots
• Beets
• Radishes
• Turnips
• Rutabagas
• Daikon
• Bush beans (if you have 60+ frost-free days left)
• Swiss chard
• Start broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, kale, collards, and kohlrabi either indoors or in a shady area in your garden

Week 2
• Lettuce
• Spinach (once nights cool)
• Arugula
• Mustard greens
• Bok choy
• Tatsoi
• Mizuna
• Napa cabbage
• Cilantro
• Dill
• Parsley
• Green onions/scallions

Week 3
• Salad mixes
• Radishes
• Turnip greens
• Mustard greens
• Cress
• Arugula
• Peas (for areas with a long enough fall season)

Week 4
• Spinach
• Kale
• Collards
• Swiss chard
• Lettuce

If you’re in a warmer climate with a long growing season, you can often keep planting tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, zucchini, squash, okra, bush beans, sweet corn, and even pumpkins.

What are you planting this month?

07/30/2026

This morning I was out in the garden collecting dill seeds when I realized I had a bunch of leftover dill umbels… and way too many cucumbers ready to harvest. The garden basically decided I was making pickles today. 🥒🌿

Here’s my go-to lacto-fermented dill pickle recipe:

• Slice and wash your cucumbers.
• Soak them in ¾ cup pickling salt + 2 gallons of water for 12–18 hours, covered.
• The next day, layer the drained cucumbers with fresh dill umbels, garlic, black peppercorns, bay leaves and mustard seeds in a large glass jar.
• Mix a brine using 30 g pickling salt per 1 liter of water and pour it over everything until the cucumbers are completely submerged.
• Ferment at room temperature for about 1 week or until it’s at the stage of fermentation you like, then transfer to the refrigerator.

Unlike vinegar pickles, these are naturally fermented. The beneficial bacteria convert the cucumbers’ natural sugars into lactic acid, creating that classic sourness while helping preserve them. Lacto-fermentation can support a healthy gut microbiome by providing live cultures (when they’re not heat-treated).

Once they’re in the refrigerator, they’re ready to enjoy and will typically stay at their best for 3–6 months, often longer if they remain submerged in the brine, smell pleasantly sour, and show no signs of spoilage.

One of my favorite parts of gardening is finding ways to preserve the harvest so nothing goes to waste. 🌿🥒

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