what to do with weeks-old brews
 

All spring, it seems, I've been making 5-gallon buckets of fermented compost "tea" with alfalfa, nettles, cornmeal, etc., intending to let it sit for a few days and then dilute and use. But then I have too much to do in the garden and never get around to using all of the brew, and now when I open the lid it smells so strongly that people 20 yards away (not knowing the source of the smell) start making comments about it. (The most entertaining was a group of boy scouts who were doing a project in the community garden and started blaming each other for the smell.) If chicken manure is 10 on the smell-o-meter, I'd rate my long-fermented brews at about 8.

So anyway, now I have 3 buckets of the stuff and I'm wondering what to do with it. I'm reluctant to experiment with my tomato plants or other seedlings. My latest plan is to go to the garden at 6 am, pour one bucket in a compost bin on top of a thick layer of mulch, and add a layer of coffee grounds on top. The alternate plan is to dilute (1 to 3 or 1 to 10) and pour it onto my mulched paths, which are the only unplanted part of the garden, then add some more mulch on top. I do have a few container plants that I could sacrifice (experiment on) as well.

Has anyone else successfully (or not) used this kind of stuff in the garden?

Also, the comfrey is almost done flowering, so it's almost time to start making comfrey tea for the garden! Does anyone else use comfrey tea?

Pour it on a compost bin and start over?

Conduct an impromptu science experiment by pouring the buckets on some unsuspecting weeds in a ditch somewhere and observe them so you'll know if it's still good for plants the next time the tea gets away from you?

Save it and only open the buckets when someone annoying is around, if it works bottle it and sell it as Busy-Bee Away, tagline: no more nosy neighbors!
Make sure to package it with a nose plug for the user.

Seal it up, agitate regularly, and hope that the creature from the black swamp buckets hatches soon and makes you a millionaire?

:) Keep us updated.
Enjay
PS I'm really thinking that I need to sleep before I post any more. I'm getting loopy, but at least it's not loopers!

Whenever I have tea that I haven't had time to apply, I've just dumped it back onto the current compost pile. I wouldn't take a chance putting it on the plants if it's gone stinky.

Ooh, aninocentangel, good ideas. I hadn't thought of using it to clear the area. Hmm...it could be useful to encourage the smokers, cell-phone yakkers, and loud-car-radio-playing people to move on. I certainly clear out when someone else is using chicken manure!

I'm a veritable font of useful ideas such as those. :D

If it works I might just have to ask for some to get rid of those rassafrassin' tree rats that have decided laying waste to my raised bed just isn't enough fun, they've moved their nest from the oak trees into my magnolia and have been mainlining strawberries for the past two days.
If it also happens to discourage the teenagers next door from providing visual aids to go along with my birds n bees discussions with my kids, all the better. They could at least get a car.