Those words should be spoken by Don LaFontaine as the summing up after "In a world where chilli plants are under attack..."
Getting bored with squish, squish, squish, I decided to take a more methodical, less green fingered approach. Using a scalpel, some cheap reading glasses and a piece of kitchen towel, I went into battle.
The tiny aphid offspring were suddenly visible, and using the scalpel it was possible to flick them onto the paper towel where they could be squashed with the flat of the blade. Key areas to locate the buggers are generally around the flower stalks, although sometimes they venture onto the undersides of leaves if they're feeling particularly cosmopolitan. Looking for shed skin cases is a useful way of tracking them, they are white and look very like a small aphid, these will be seen on the soil or on leaves, and there may often be a recently enlarged beast specimen directly above. Tidy away any skin cases as new ones will give an indication of further pest activity.
Ten minutes of checking chilli plants three times a day has reduced the population to the point where I need much greater magnification reading glasses. Either that or the aphid population has been vanquished.*
I'm pretty sure there are still aphids there, tiny, not yet old enough to reproduce, waiting for me to go out. And as long as I spot them before they get to a week old and pop out more clones then this out of control game of life may become void.
Rules for minimum viable population are probably not the same for aphids reproducing via parthenogenesis. Infestation from soil borne eggs and winged aphid invaders is also a risk, especially with non-sterilised soil and an environment which it isn't possible to isolate or hermetically seal.** The only real answer is scorched earth, and that won't produce me any chillies.
With the above in mind, and Don's voice reverberating between my ears, I will steel myself to continue the deadly battle.
Green death gets serious, if only the Doctor and an assistant were available.
* Fat chance.
** In one of their incarnations they give birth to live young, in another they can lay eggs, in another they can fly - sneaky buggers.
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