Normally, Alfalfa Tea is put down as a summer to late summer pick-me-up, but not in the spring. Once the leaves on the roses get to the size of the first joint on your piny finger, you should begin fertilizing once a month with a good, well-balanced fertilizer, but not weed and feed. Roses are heavy feeders, so anything extra you can give like tea or Alaska Fish Emulsion is fine. However, tea of itself does not contain the requisite nutrients a rose needs to do well by itself. I would never think of feeding tea now, because it's not enough to get them off to a good start.

It doesn't have to stink or ferment to be effective. It stinks when the oxygen in the liquid is used up. "Orange" seems odd, but to each their own. It seems a little early to me, but I only tried the "tea" once and it was too much trouble.

When it is cold it will not smell but it can still be effective just as alfalfa meal is effective. You know the reason they keep meatmarkets so cold it so keep them from smelling bad but the meat tastes good nonetheless and there is nothing any better than aged beef. :-)

Put it down. If the plants do not take up the "orange," when the weather is warmer, they will take up the alfalfa meal that was a part of the mix.

I did the normal fertilizing of the roses this spring with the granulas and such but the tea is a new thing to me. I've heard people say spring till summer with the tea. The roses are actively growing now so i figured now the time.

I've already applied a fortified tea twice now. Along with the alfalfa, I switch it up. Sometimes I add processed chicken manure, chelated iron, and epsom salts. Or you can just use the alfalfa. I let mine steep for about a week or so, and it should be ready to go.

I usually give my strugglers a weak dose of tea ( non foaming cold that I start indoors in milk containers) when they are just budding. You can prepare the real stuff to ferment in the sun when you give the first dose of fertilizer and follow with alfalfa tea a few weeks later. They are two different chemicals; alfalfa being a root stimulant as opposed to a fertilizer. This works really well for me. Hard to OD them on Alfalfa.