Q&A

I have a blueberry bush that sends up new shoots which need their own 3 years. From my understanding they only give out good fruit on younger wood. Would it be allowed to keep old canes and graft new shoots that come out of the ground onto those old shoots and therefore from a halachic perspective it is old enough, but from a botanical perspective it is still young.

I see on my mandarin tree that some of the flowers set right before 15 Shevat. Assuming that citrus fruits also follow chanatah, how would I deal with terumot and ma'aserot? Would I need to take from each fruit separately?

If I were to graft on peaches, would that be fine as it is the same species as nectarine, or it is as if I'm grafting onto the rootstock again, and would therefore be not permitted?

Shalom Rav, B"H I was zoche to move into a new home in E"Y with some fruit trees. I have a nectarine tree growing in my garden, and I am not sure what the rootstock is. Am I allowed to continue tending to it since it's safek kilayim? 

We just made aliyah and are renting an apartment from a non religious family that has lots of fruit trees. The trees are all more than 6 yrs old. I don't know and can't ascertain whether they observed any of the halachot of orlah. Since the trees are more than 4 yrs old, do I not have to be concerned or is there still something we need to do retroactively?

 Anything the trees produce this year we will be mafrish terumot and ma'aserot ourselves as they have given us permission to collect the fruits from the garden.

Recently I bought a blueberry seedling which, according to El-Rom Nursery, is considered two years old (halachically) and grown in a detached platform. The pot is perforated, and in my case it’s growing on tiles. Does it continue its orlah year count this way, or do I need to start counting again? And if at some point it’s placed directly on the ground, will I then need to restart the count?
Another question — the plant has both thicker and thinner branches growing from the main stem. Do I need to ensure that no new branches grow from the base, since that would mean starting the orlah count again for those branches? Or is the plant as a whole considered one entity, regardless of the branches?
Thank you.

I signed up as a member of Beit Ha'otzar at one point last year. Now that Rosh Hashanah has just passed, do I need to renew my membership, as it's a new ma'aser year?

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?