Who wins the most 'carefree' vegetable contest?

Who provides the most per square foot and has the least troubles?

Drum roll please...............I say the pepper!

In all of my growing years (a lot) I have yet to see disease or virus issues on pepper plants. One year I had a black worm tunneling down the top of the plant stems, but that was it for insect issues, except cutworms which can be thwarted. They will gladly produce fruits for you - given water & some fert or fertile soil to grow in.

Usually, these are are some of the most common issues:
lettuce - rabbits & hot weather send it into seed quickly
mustard & meslcun - flea beetles
green beans - foliar diseases, Mexican bean beetles & white fly (this year)
sweet corn - NRCB, Corn ear worm, picnic beetles, coons (traps are set)
potatoes - CPB (Colorado Potato beetle), potato scab (a soil borne disease can be associated
                          with horse manure; no cure, you got it, you got it)
onions - they can be simple to grow too, but you only get one per plant (dah)
broccoli - cabbage moth damage, rabbit damage, cut worms
peas - very simple too, but hot weather can quickly & permanently halt production, rabbits love them
melons, cukes & squashes - prone to many foliar diseases and chomping by the cuke beetle,
sap sucking from the squash bug, and vine burrowing by the 'squash vine burrow.'

So let me get this straight........let's look at one poor pumpkin plant.

• It's roots are being fed on by the larvae of the cuke beetle
• the adult cuke beetle is chewing on the leaves & stems and spreading disease in its mouth parts
• the squash bugs are in herds sucking the juices out of the plants leaves
• NRCB (northern root worm corn beetle) and cuke bugs are eating little holes in the fruits
• the picnic beetle is drilling into any little hole in the fruits left by others to feed
• the squash vine borer, is 'boreing' a tunnel through the plants vines

AND then we are disappointed we didn't get 10 pumpkins per plant........what?