I found my rain barrel to be a little tricky at first - you need rain to fill your rain barrel, so the garden doesn't need water for a while....in the meantime, the 'compost tea water' collected is just sitting there. In my experience, the water I collect is always a deep brown color as it collects in my rain barrel. I have 3 large trees over the back side of my house, and despite my best efforts to keep debris out of them (even with screens, etc.), it's a losing battle. I feel like this is working to my advantage so far though - I've left this brownish water in the barrel for at least a couple of weeks on occasion during the peak of summer before needing to use it, and my plants still seem to love it. It doesn't smell 'off' or change in color, but I have no ideas if this would be an indicator that it has gone bad.
At any rate, it takes no effort on my end for the 'enhanced' water so I'll keep on rollin' with it. Ultimately, all the semi decomposed gutter goodies make it out to the compost pile and then to the veggie beds, so it's gonna get there sooner or later!
