Re-purposing the old satellite dish again for more food preservation.

I have had this dish around for years now and have used it for a number of things but this is probably the best use I have come up with for it. I have been using sliding glass door screens for my drying but I needed a lot more room. In my ruminating over the possible solution, my mind hit upon the dish. It was put off to the side out of view so was not present in my mind right away.

This morning I went and dug it out and found it to be covered in fir needles, grass, weeds, and detritus so it got a got brushing and I also hit it with the air compressor to blow the garbage out of the cracks. It sits perfectly on top of one of my large 30 gallon nursery pots, allowing me enough space to reach the middle of the dish. It's an 8 foot diameter mesh C-Band satellite dish that a client from landscaping days let me have.

I have 3 rows of kale and the only one to be getting bugs so far is the Lacinto, but the Bolshoi and Tronchuda have no bugs. I have checked the plants extensively so am comfortable not washing the leaves since there are minimal bugs. A little bit ago I started on one end of the Bolshoi row and just stripped the leaves from the stalks without removing them. Toss them in the bin and continue down the row until the bin was full near the end of the row. I spread them all out and the full bin worth just fully covered the dish as you can see at the top.

Quick aside:
Yesterday evening I went out and stripped the leaves from the Lacinto kale and tossed it onto the screen door and window screen to let it sit overnight so it would be getting the full light of today since it is the hottest day this week. You can see the screens in the upper right of the pic above.

My first batches of dried kale were done on the screen doors. There is a significantly smaller amount of surface area for me to lay kale, but it is still a large space. Between a number of screens, I am able to dry a pretty significant amount of kale at a time.

This is the other screen from the first batch.

1/2 pound of DRIED kale!

This is just from the first batch of kale dried on the screen door and window screen. That is a 2 gallon ziplock bag in my hand so it is a good volume as well as weight. If the first batch is any indication I should be able to get at least 2 pounds or fully dried kale, maybe even 3 pounds before the bugs take over the plants.