What Makes Apples Fall from the Tree?

One of the things I love most about Fall is all the wonderful scents we associate with it. Fall. Who doesn’t love the aroma of apple cider, candles, or an apple pie baking in the oven?

In our home, one of the least favorable things the Fall brings is all the fruit it drops on the ground. Let’s just say my boys would probably say their least favorite chore is picking up what seems to be an endless mound of apples on the ground.

Early Fruit Drop — Nature’s Design

According to the Gardening Know How web page, sometimes early fruit drop from apple trees is just Mother Nature’s way of reducing a heavy fruit set. This isn’t necessarily bad at all; in fact, it is recommended that you thin apples to one per cluster. Thinning in this manner prevents limb breakage from overly heavy fruit set and allows the tree to produce the largest, healthiest fruit.

A Lesson From Our Plum Tree

I remember one day my husband pruned back our plum tree. I was not happy to come outside and discover that he had cut back my favorite tree. Whenever my husband pulls out the pruners, I get nervous, as he tends to sometimes get carried away.

The reason he gave me for his process is that he noticed the weight of the fruit was weighing down the branch, so he cut it back. It turned out the following year that tree produced more fruit than the previous years.

It turns out the weight of the branch was hindering the tree from becoming all that it was meant to be. What I thought was an unfavorable act of pruning turned out to be necessary for the health of that tree so that it could bear much fruit.

The Beauty of “Deciduous”

What I discovered is that the same term they use to describe trees that lose their leaves is the same term they apply to other aspects of nature such as animals and fruit trees. I love how botanical websites define the word deciduous as:

• “the dropping of a part that is no longer needed”

• “falling away after its purpose is finished.”

Pruning, Trials, and God’s Hand at Work

Often, we view our trials as a bad thing — an unnecessary part of life. But, like the apple tree, often God must prune away those things in our lives that are weighing us down and hindering us from becoming all that He has created us to be.

We will all face trials in our lives at some point or another. Those are the days when life’s circumstances seem to weigh us down and we wonder:

“Lord, what good can come of this?”

Just remember and hold on to the words of the Vine Dresser:

“Behold, for I am doing a new thing.