Raising a large family resulted in a 12-page resume of a wide variety of experiences and learning opportunities, mostly connected to the outdoors. Retirement provided Tom Wilkinson the time to write about converting organic waste to vermicompost. Researching the literature revealed that while much was written about small classroom-sized worm farms, and huge commercial vermiculture operations, there was very little written about the medium-sized system needed by most serious gardeners. After many attempts to build an ideal system the VermiChester system evolved that is inexpensive to build. An