6 Best Cheap Crates For Starting A Farm on a Homestead Budget
Starting a homestead on a budget? This guide reviews the 6 best cheap crates for harvesting and storage, balancing cost with farm-ready durability.
You can’t run a homestead without something to put things in. It’s a simple truth that gets overlooked until you’re staring at 50 pounds of potatoes with only your two hands. The right crates are the unsung, unglamorous workhorses of a productive small farm, acting as the bridge between field, wash station, and table.
Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate, this site earns from qualifying purchases. Thank you!
Why Versatile Crates Are a Homestead Essential
The real work of a homestead isn’t just growing things; it’s moving them efficiently. A good crate is more than a box. It’s part of a system for harvesting, cleaning, storing, and transporting everything from eggs to zucchini. Without a solid system, you lose time, damage produce, and create unnecessary frustration.
Think of crates as an investment in workflow. The best ones are stackable, durable, and easy to clean. They need to handle being dropped, dragged, and pressure washed without complaint. A flimsy container that cracks under a load of winter squash is worse than useless—it’s a liability that costs you the very harvest it was meant to protect.
Standard Dairy Milk Crates: The Ultimate Upcycle
Nothing on a farm is tougher than a standard 16-quart milk crate. These things are nearly indestructible, capable of holding immense weight and withstanding years of abuse. You can often find them at farm auctions, flea markets, or through online classifieds for just a few dollars apiece. Just be sure you’re acquiring them legally and not simply "liberating" them from behind a grocery store.
Milk crates are the go-to for heavy, non-delicate crops. Think potatoes, onions, turnips, or butternut squash. The wide-open grid provides excellent airflow for curing, but it’s also their biggest weakness; smaller items like green beans or garlic will fall right through. They also make fantastic carriers for tools, irrigation fittings, or even a quick, sturdy stool when you need a break.
Carlisle Bus Tubs for Harvest and Wash Stations
Sometimes the best crate isn’t a crate at all. Restaurant-style bus tubs, typically made by Carlisle or Rubbermaid, are a game-changer for harvesting and processing. Their solid, waterproof design makes them perfect for anything you need to wash or that might leak, like freshly rinsed carrots or beets with their tops still on.
The real magic happens when you set up a two-tub wash station. Use the first for an initial dunk and scrub to remove the bulk of the field dirt. Use the second for a final, clean rinse. This simple setup saves an incredible amount of time and keeps your kitchen sink from turning into a mud pit. They are also superior for harvesting loose, delicate items like salad greens or berries that would be damaged or lost in a vented crate.
Vented Harvest Lugs for Delicate Produce Care
When you start growing produce that bruises easily, it’s time to upgrade to vented harvest lugs. These shallow, stackable crates are the professional standard for a reason. The ventilation slots allow heat to escape and air to circulate, which is critical for preventing spoilage in things like tomatoes, summer squash, and peppers right after picking.
While they cost more than a secondhand milk crate, they pay for themselves by protecting your most valuable crops. Their interlocking design means you can stack them high without crushing the produce on the bottom layer, a fatal flaw of using deep buckets. If you plan to sell at a farmers market, a clean, uniform stack of harvest lugs signals quality and professionalism to your customers.
CleverMade Collapsible Crates for Easy Storage
The biggest problem with a good collection of crates is where to put them all. A stack of 20 rigid milk crates or harvest lugs can eat up a surprising amount of precious barn or shed space. This is where collapsible crates shine. They offer decent capacity and strength but fold down to a fraction of their size for storage.
These are not your heavy-duty field crates. Their moving parts make them less durable than a solid-molded crate, so don’t expect them to survive being dragged across gravel day after day. Their ideal use is for transport and distribution. They are perfect for market days, CSA drop-offs, or keeping in the back of your vehicle for supply runs, giving you hauling capacity without the permanent clutter.
Miller Poultry Coops for Safe Animal Transport
Moving animals requires a specialized tool, not a repurposed vegetable crate. A proper poultry transport coop is an essential piece of equipment for anyone raising chickens, turkeys, or even rabbits. Using a makeshift carrier is a recipe for escaped animals, broken limbs, and unnecessary stress for both you and your livestock.
Look for coops with a top-loading door, which makes it far easier to get birds in and out without a fight. Good ventilation is non-negotiable, but the bottom should be solid to contain manure during transit. This is not an area to cut corners; investing in a proper, purpose-built coop ensures animal welfare and makes a potentially chaotic task much safer and more manageable.
The Humble 5-Gallon Bucket: A Crate Alternative
No discussion of cheap containers is complete without mentioning the 5-gallon bucket. They are everywhere, they are cheap (or free), and they are incredibly useful. For hand-harvesting tasks like picking green beans, cherry tomatoes, or berries, a bucket is often easier to carry through the rows than a bulky crate.
However, a bucket is a poor substitute for a true harvest crate. They don’t offer any ventilation, causing produce to sweat and spoil faster. They also don’t stack when full, and their round shape is an inefficient use of space for storage or transport. Use them for the initial pick, but transfer your harvest to a proper crate or lug for washing, curing, and storage as soon as possible.
Choosing the Right Crate for Your Homestead Task
There is no single "best" crate for a homestead. The goal is to build a versatile system using the right tool for the right job. You wouldn’t use a delicate, vented lug for hauling firewood, and you wouldn’t use a milk crate for transporting baby chicks. Matching the container to the task saves time, protects your harvest, and reduces waste.
Before you buy anything, think about your primary needs.
- Heavy & Hardy: For root vegetables, tools, and general hauling, nothing beats the durability of a milk crate.
- Wet & Delicate: For washing produce or harvesting loose greens, bus tubs are unmatched.
- High-Value & Perishable: To protect tomatoes, peppers, and market crops, invest in vented harvest lugs.
- Living Cargo: For safe and humane transport, a purpose-built poultry coop is the only responsible choice.
Ultimately, the best crates are the ones that make your daily chores simpler and more efficient. By investing thoughtfully in these basic tools, you build a foundation for a smoother, more productive, and less frustrating homesteading life. It’s a small expense that pays dividends every single day.
