This image is amazing for its shape and texture and of course due to the great choise of color. As some other did already point out, the ladder disturbes the natural structure of the wood of the boxes. I think this too.
An old wooden ladder would have been great her: it would not disturb, because it would be of the same material as the boxes, but would bring in a dynamic, living element. Otherwise it would look to artificial.
This is a great example of what cropping and angle do for a pic. I "think" that if you were to crop out the ground, taken away the ladder, along with tilting the photo to the left about 3degrees (it seems "off", the boxes seem to be leaning to the right), you could be looking at a ribbon...
I still can't figure out why, but for some reason I find this picture very, very beautiful. It might be the pattern and the colours, in particular the colours, they are just very pleasing to my eyes.
Pretty picture!!! I can almost smell the apples. The white ladder along with the white on the boxes is a good touch. The red adds just enough color to bring the picture out.