Stackable Fruit & Vegetable Storage Crates

This is the crate you build five of, not one — the whole point is stacking a produce shelf's worth of identical bins from the cheapest materials in the lumber aisle: one 1x2 and a bundle of wood lath (the same thin strips used for plaster backing, sold in bulk and nearly free per piece).

The legs and bottom-support frame get pocket holes and glue, but everything above that — the end slats, side slats, and bottom slats — is nailed with 3/4" brads, because a produce crate takes daily handling and brad-and-glue joints are fast to build in volume and easy to replace a board on if one splits.

The bottom slats are the one deliberate exception to "glue everything": they sit loose inside the frame, unfastened. Pull them out to dump wilted lettuce or rinse dirt off potatoes, then drop them back in. A glued-in bottom would turn every cleaning into a scraping job.

Build the end slats first, then cut the side slats to fit the actual box you built rather than to a fixed number — lath thickness varies enough between pieces that "cut to fit" beats a spec measurement here. Stack a few crates and the 2-1/2" starting gap above the legs (called out in the cut sequence) is what lets one crate nest cleanly on the one below it.