Are green peppers considered fruit? I didn't know that.
Very cute and fun idea, lovely concept with the sparring veggies/fruit. I don't mind the wires that much, but know what you mean - and never fear, even the mighty Christophe has had fishing line visible in some Basic entries :-) Mind some black marker ink or paint may have dulled the wire of the VS. enough to minimize the support wires.
The main problem here is the darkness of the shot. A higher ISO and larger aperture would have helped a lot, and a reflector of some kind. Even a piece of aluminum foil on cardboard works well. I am guessing you mean 1/15 of a second? With a shot like this, you would want to go much longer. Obviously the camera is already on a tripod, just set the time to a second or more.
But obviously people liked it enough as you finished in the top 15, so keep up the good work, pay more attention to the technical side esp lighting, and you'll do fine.