Q&A

There is a guava tree in my apartment building’s shared courtyard (with 15 families). Every week I pick two to four fruits and take them home. Am I supposed to take terumot and ma’aserot from the guava with a blessing? If the tree was in a public playground, would its fruit also be subject to terumot and ma’aserot?

Is it permissible to weave a mat from the lulav leaflets or, alternatively, to throw the lulav away in the garbage? Similarly, would it be permissible to build furniture from planks used to place sechach on?

I didn’t quite understand the issue of the coin used for terumot and ma‘aserot. What exactly is this coin? Is it just regular money? Also, does this mean I can’t eat fruit from a garden if I don’t have the coin with me at that moment—for example, if I’m at the school where I work and there are fruit trees there?

I see that it says on all the etrog boxes “not grafted.” What exactly does that mean?

Can turmeric and ginger be planted in the same planter together? Or do I need to create a physical barrier?

If I want to plant seeds or roots from a vegetable I bought, do I need to worry it was grown from grafting? Such as cucumber, pepper, potato, lettuce.

Shalom Uvracha!

Attached are two pictures of flowerpots which were planted with spices (a few weeks ago).  The flowerpots are mounted on a stone fence.  I was told that the spices are at least 15cm apart (does it look it?). I don’t know which spice is which.  The gardener gave the following list (although I’m not sure that all of the list is in these 2 specific flowerpots):

לואיזה
מרווה
גרניום לימוני
בזיליקום
אורגנו
טימין

Can you tell from the pictures which is which? And is there a problem of kilayim (or something else)? Kilayim now or kilayim in the future when the leaves grow and overlap?  And what I should do to resolve the problem, if any?

I have two questions: 1) What are the three categories according to which you can classify different types of plants vis-à-vis kilayim? 2) According to which categories are different types of plants classified today in terms of kilayim?

Question: I saw that a green grocer's kashrut certificate in Jerusalem stated that only non-mehadrin stores are allowed to sell raspberries. Why is that?