DIY Worm Tower Plans: Three stacked buckets, a lid and some mesh: a worm tower that makes castings · Alt Ordo Systems Guide

A worm farm is a shallow, dark, damp box of bedding where red worms eat your kitchen scraps and turn them into castings, a fine, dark soil amendment. There is no turning and no heat. It fits under a sink, on a porch or in a cabin corner, and the simplest version is three 5-gallon buckets stacked into a tower. This guide keeps our original Worm Tower plans as its centrepiece, corrects them against extension research, and adds bins, sizing and what to do with the castings.

This guide helps you build the three-bucket worm tower from our original plans, size a bin to your kitchen, feed and harvest it through the year, and use the castings where they do the most good.

What's inside. 12 pages in 7 chapters (At a glance, Where it works, How it works, Size it, Build and run it, Rules and permits, How it connects), then the sources and a notes page. 5 numbered figures drawn for this guide. You also get a worked example with a fill-in worksheet, 7 numbered steps, a year-round calendar, and a troubleshooting table.

Sourced and fact-checked. Facts and figures are cited to the 22 sources listed at the back, and the whole guide was fact-checked before release. General guidance, not engineering advice: your county and a qualified pro have the last word on your site.

Pairs with other Alt Ordo Systems Guides: Composting; Black Soldier Fly Homestead Guide; The off-grid vegetable garden; Hoop greenhouses; Backyard chickens. For your county's permits and rules, see our county and state guides.

Instant PDF download. After checkout you get a download link by email. Letter-size pages, made to read on screen or print at home.