Q&A

In the yard of my apartment building there is a mulberry tree, next to the parking lot. Most of the residents aren't interested in picking the fruit and in regular years we do. Am I allowed to harvest the berries and prepare jam, just as I do during regular years and like I used to do in the United States, in my childhood?

I am advertising my running group at the entrance of a development nearby. I hung up a sign on the gate and just recently noticed that a bush is hiding most of my contact information (instead of 0543261860, only the 8 and 6 are visible!)

Am I allowed to trim the bush so everyone can see my number?

 Do you have a Shehechiyanu when you eat for the first time kedushat shevi'it produce?

I was so excited this week (Iyar 5782) to buy peaches and nectarines with kedushat shevi'it from Otzar Ha'aretz and now I have a question about them:

I eat the fruit and then the pit is left with lots of bits of fruit attached. Am I allowed to throw the pit away or should I put it in the shemitah bin until the fruit rots? What about a composter?

I'm a gardener and I have a client whose apricot tree is a mess. It is terribly overgrown and the fruit is also infested. The fruit is starting to yellow, but it's not really ripe yet. Is there something I can do?

During regular years, I like to pick flowers and fragrant herbs (star jasmine, roses, and rosemary) from my garden to decorate my  house and perfume the air in honor of  Shavuot. Can I put them in vases with water, or is that like planting them?

Iyar 5782, May 2022

I have a very tall nectarine tree (we didn't prune it this year). We picked the nectarines that we could reach, but there are dozens more that are very high up and difficult to reach. Do I have to pick them?

My son wants us to save our apricot pits for him to play gogo'im at recess. We buy otzar beit din apricots. Now I know that barely any fruit gets stuck to the pit, but technically if you open up the pit, the inside is edible.

Is it permissible to play with the pits or is this considered degrading or hefsed? And, in general, are we supposed to keep these pits in the shemitah bin or can we throw them away regularly?

I purchased a peach that is otzar beit din, shemitah produce. It is very juicy, if I wipe the drops with a paper napkin/towel, how do I treat the paper napkin that absorbed the juice drops?

I live in the United States. I bought an Israeli brand body lotion Nakeh7. I noticed that some of the ingredients are herbs: Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Juice Powder, Lavandula Angustifolia (Lavender) Flower Extract, Camellia Sinensis Leaf Extract. Could any of these ingredients pose a halachic problem in terms of shemitah laws or other land-dependent mitzvot? Note that there is a kashrut symbol on the product, but I'm not familiar with its rulings regarding shemitah and land-related mitzvot for soap production.