The Chemistry of Pruning

Nowadays everyone wants to eat more healthy, get fresh produce, and go to farmer’s markets or specialty grocers, searching for organic fruits and vegetables.

Many are even digging up their lawns and landscapes to plant small gardens at home, just to get the freshest produce they can find. Some will grow just a few things like herbs and tomatoes. Others will plant a massive spread to fill their tables.

Want luscious tomatoes, juicy apples or prize-winning pumpkins growing in your garden? It doesn’t matter if you want to grow a tree, shrub, or vine, flowers, fruit or vegetables, you need to prune your plants. Trim and thin. Increase the symmetry and the yield. By proper pruning you will be able to make your plants healthier, more productive and more attractive.

To prune you need to do these four things:

• Trim the dead wood
• Thin out the extra growth
• Cut out the suckers
• Snip back to a bud

When trimming the dead branches, any time of year is fine. Cutting back the dead to live foliage will generally stimulate more shoots and help to shape the plant.

Thinning out dense growth, be it clearing weaker branches or removing excess edible produce, lets in more sunlight to the remaining vegetation. This gives the plant more energy to grow. Select the biggest and best of the yield, snipping off the rest.

Suckers “suck” the life from the plant and can take away from the beauty or the bounty. They tend to be weaker and less productive than the main shoots and should be removed.

Finally, clipping to a bud reduces extraneous shoots and gets the growth started again quickly. This also encourages more blooms.

All of these techniques focus on making the plant more beautiful and productive, increasing the harvest or the appearance of the plant.

In much the same way God prunes the ones He loves to make them more fit for His Kingdom and His work. Jesus even referred to Himself as part of the plant from which we grow.

In John 15:2 (NIV) Jesus says: “He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.”

And in John 15:5 (NIV) Jesus says: “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”

God tells us what fruit He wants us to bear for His Kingdom, the fruit of the Spirit:

Galatians 5:22 (NIV): The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

So that we can live worthy of Him:

Colossians 1:10 (NIV): So that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God,

God directs us, through repentance and by faith, to yield good fruit for His harvest.

Matthew 3:8 (NIV): Produce fruit in keeping with repentance.

Matthew 12:33 (NIV): “Make a tree good and its fruit will be good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad, for a tree is recognized by its fruit.”

John 15:8 (NIV): This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

The Greek word for “prune” is “Kathairō” which means “to cleanse of impurities.” God does a good work in us so we may be clean and He will continue it until all impurities are gone.

He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. – Philippians 1:6 (NIV)

There is nothing that can take away His love for us.

Romans 8:39 (NLT): …nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God…