Is it elliptical?
"in some cases, as with beans and cucumbers, your children -- as it were, begin to turn upon you in massive numbers, growing more and more each morning and threatening to follow you into the house to strangle you in their vines."
In the sentence above, " as with beans and cucumbers " seems to be elliptical. How to understand this? And how to understand "with"

Question

Is it elliptical?
"in some cases, as with beans and cucumbers, your children -- as it were, begin to turn upon  you in massive numbers, growing more and more each morning and threatening to follow you into the house to strangle you in their vines."
In the sentence above,  " as with beans and cucumbers " seems to be elliptical. How to understand this? And how to understand "with"

Answer

I do not quite understand your reference to the geometrical shape "elliptical".

Here are images to the shape  termed   Ellipse:

http://search.aol.com/aol/image?q=images+%2B++ellipse

The  quote  refers to the rapid growth and vines of beans and cucumbers, which must be checked daily so that one can pick the vegetables when they  are ripe.   If not picked,  they will grow to huge size and begin to lose their freshness and flavor.   Cucumbers can be picked at about the 8 inch size or slightly larger.   Once they get much larger, they will not be the best to eat.   Beans  also should be picked at the proper time,  and not allowed to grow to excessive size.

The vines of these plants will overgrow all other plants in the garden if care is not take to give them a lot of space for their own growth.