Another garden update

Pepper closeup

Originally uploaded by AKA MEDIA SYSTEM

After a rocky patch, the garden is doing better. This, however, is the only result of the entire operation so far. A ~200$ pepper, photograph much enlarged.
The current problem (which I believe I may just now have resolved) is that my pepper plants took off: once I installed the LED panel and set it to provide 18 hours of consistent light, most of my plants much improved. The Thai basil is still oddly spindly, and the rosemary withered up and died, but an investigation of their respective root structures leads me to believe that they were doomed to fail. The Thai basil had few usable roots at all after its potting-soil transplant (its leaves were constantly brown, brittle, and flaking off), and the rosemary had such spare, woody roots that I imagined it had been compromised long before I got ahold of it, when it was being potted for sale at the garden center.
The aphids have returned, though, and I will make a second spraying tonight in an effort to defeat them.
The real problem, though, is that while the pepper plants have really thrived, they are not producing any peppers. It is also shockingly difficult to find anywhere online that will describe what it is like to watch a pepper grow. I have worked out that the flower turns into the pepper, but all my flowers have been drying up and falling off.
In a move of reprehensible deceit, I visited a local garden store and asked about this issue, carefully implying that I had sourced the peppers from their establishment. I was told by a dull boy that I should probably have been pruning it, so pruning it I have done, this evening.
Do please leave jibes, advice, or commiseration in the comments. Thomas, I hear you! But this household is leery of worms, because our landlady would not like to hear of such a thing. (“Hydroponic grow operation” does not faze her, but I know that worms will!)