In the same vein as Mulchy's leaves in a bag, I have a question about inadvertently making tea over the winter.

I put the fall's leaves in an open garbage can next to the compost bin, intending to use those leaves as a convenient carbon in the hopes the bin would keep cooking long enough to never get quite 100% full. It worked, for the most part, but I fully expected the plastic can to split wide open as the chill deepened.

It didn't, and now that the chance of lingering snow has passed, I have a very dark brown soup that looks like coffee, but smells like a well-kept stable.

I can only think this is good stuff.... but what in my veggie garden would benefit from it the most? And how shall I dilute it?

I've already bottled it with every large beverage and food container I had in the recycling bin (good thing the laundry tomb vinegar bottles didn't go out this week!), and still had to let a lot of it go. I need that garbage can for other stuff, like, now. My neighbours have started a pool. They're betting they guess the date I get hauled away in a strait-jacket. ;\

It should be rich in microbes for your garden soil. It may not be rich in nitrogen, since it's main ingredient was leaves.

I would dilute it to a 1:3 ratio, and spray it on my crops as a foliar spray. Or you can just pour it straight on your garden beds as a soil drench. It should be great!

Hm: not rich in nitrogen. So it would better serve my potatoes and root vegetables, not my corn? That's good, because I don't have many low-nitro options this year for the taters.

One question: I didn't rinse out the vinegar bottles very well, as I had only intended them to go in the blue box, not be used in the garden. This is your standard table vinegar, not the heavy-duty stuff. Have I hurt the microbial ecosystem, or will it recover? Should I keep it in the shade or in the sun? It will be a while before the plants will need it. Our last frost date is usually the second-last week of May.

Thanks, Cap'n!

It should be ok! A lot of folk like Howard Garrett (dirtdoctor.com) use a little apple cider vinegar in his version of compost tea recipes, as an acidic fertilizer ingredient, as well as a little acidity for extra phosphorus availablity for extra flowering or fruiting in foliar spraying.

My understanding is that all sugar products are easily digestible high carboneous materials, (thus "browns"), for tea brews or for your soil organisms.

When sugars are digested in aerobic brews they form carbonic acids. That is great for soil, it acts like humates far as buffering and chelating nutrients to plants.

When sugars are digested in anaerobic brews, it forms natural wines, beers, and vinegar molecules in the teas, based on the ingredients and brewing conditions. Too much vinegars of course is a natural herbicide. But a few tblsp per gallon of water ain't going to kill or burn any plants.

It's all about balance and moderation anyway! (LOL)
Happy Gardening!