Jens Jensen makes almost anything he needs for his weekend life from scratch, from a doorknob to a window frame to a small wooden hut.

Such a do-it-yourself lifestyle is fairly common in his home country, Denmark, where people try to make things that last for a long time, he says.

Jensen, 34, who works at the Danish Embassy in Tokyo, is trying to introduce into Japan his compatriots' popular way of spending the weekends by renting a hut and a vegetable garden in the countryside where families and friends can enjoy planting, harvesting and cooking vegetables.