Chicken Manure And Molasses

The long awaited scene three.

Fifteen years later.

The Stink bug comes on, with orange eyebrows.

Stink bug: I am not the same stink bug.

Doctor Pangloss: We know. You are the many-times-great grandson of our original stink bug.

Stink bug: So Elodie was wrong.

Cunégonde: Hush!

Stink bug: SHE said I shouldn't have had white eyebrows.

Candide: Everyone's forgotten. It's fifteen years later. And how our garden has changed!

Cunégonde: I love it. The walls are shored up. We have a ladder. And we can now grow lovely oranges down here.

Paquette: Who's for an orange?

Candide: Not me, thanks. I'm going to harvest our pumpkin.

Doctor Pangloss: It's all worked out for the best.

Martin: What's that you say?

Doctor Pangloss: For the best! Take out those ear plugs!

Martin: Has Costa turned up yet? None of us is getting any younger.

Cunégonde: I hear footsteps.

Nobby (at ground level, but not decked out as a curtain): Here he comes now!

The audience strains to see Costa.

Is it really he? Yes. Black curly hair and whiskers. Pink shirt. Dirty trousers.

Costa: Sorry I'm late, gardening lovers!

Audience: Hooray!

Costa: How can I help you?

Candide: Tell us how to make the most of our sink hole. It's tricky growing vegies. We don't get enough sun.

Costa: Have you thought of installing a mirror?

Audience member: A mirror? That's ingenious!

Candide (frowning): And we've got snails and slugs and other pests we can't get rid of.

Stink bug: Hello!

Costa: You need to distract them by planting calendula. You could also try thyme, lavender, scented geranium, tansy or wormwood.

Half the audience are now recording this advice on their phones.

Martin: Stop that! We hold the copyright!

Candide: Not on that bit.

Cunégonde: Costa dear, sometimes I get so tired of digging.

Costa: You could try setting up a no-dig garden bed.

Cunégonde: O yes! How do I do that?

Costa: It involves many layers. First, spread some rock dust, then ten sheets of wet newspaper, next, grass cuttings, then add a layer of dead leaves, and water them in with a tablespoon of molasses, to feed the microbes.

Cunégonde: How complicated.

Costa: That's just the half of it. But when it's finished, no more digging, ever.

Doctor Pangloss: What's the next half?

Costa: A layer of lucerne, sprinkled with chicken manure, then more water and molasses, followed by a loose layer of straw, then top with home made compost and finally mulch with more straw.

Candide: Where's all this coming from?

Doctor Pangloss: Remarkable!

Martin: Chicken shit and molasses! Revolting!

The audience claps, stamps and whistles.

Costa slips out through a hole in the fence.

They calm down, as the orange dance commences.