Who would have thought that keeping chickens would become such a fashionable, chic thing to do? Now in our comfortable, family focused area of London, a family of hens cluck happily in their coop in the garden just behind ours (undoubtedly driving the urban foxes who live in the undergrowth mad with frustration), while vegetable patches have cropped up one after another in house after house (and before Michele Obama planted hers).
Hen coops and gardening containers have become must items at trade fairs over the past year or so, but one of the chicest new hen houses turned up at the Stockholm Furniture Fair this past week - a design school project presented in the Green House section of the fair.
In stark black metal with a little black ramp, it's ideal for the trendy modern hen keeper (but don't forget the fox proof fence).
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Great, too, from the same design project, the simplest of containers for that vegetable patch. Carrots, spinach and cabbage would grow happily in this simple wooden frame.