Q&A

My friend has a feijoa tree in his garden. The tree produces very small, sour fruit that are not pleasant to eat. Is it permissible to uproot the tree?

I am about to buy a house with a small garden and several fruit trees. The problem is that the fruit trees take up nearly all of the space. Am I allowed to prune them? Or uproot them and transplant them in someone else's garden?

Hello Rabbi, Happy Chanukah!
I would appreciate guidance on a somewhat complex halachic question.

I harvested 100 kg of olives for oil production:

80 kg of them were hefker (ownerless),

20 kg belonged to someone who gave me permission to harvest them.

When I arrived at the olive press, I was told this was too small a quantity to process alone, so I waited for someone to join me. Another person arrived with 50 kg of olives, and oil was produced from a total of 150 kg. We then divided the oil according to the percentage each of us contributed.

A. Of the oil that I received, from how many kilograms must I separate terumot and ma'aserot — from 150, 100, or 20?
B. Do I need to coordinate with the other person whose oil was mixed with mine? I understand there may be an issue of bilah belach, that liquids mix.

We planted an olive tree in our yard six months ago. My mother wants to move it because she says that it bothers her in its current location. Is it permissible to move it elsewhere in the garden?

I have a tree that produces khushkhash (Seville orange) fruit. A new graft was performed, but it still produces khushkhash. Is it permissible to uproot it?

I heard that halachah forbids pruning branches of fruit trees that have fruit on them. Is this true, and in any case, which halachot apply to pruning trees—especially fruit trees?

I just read your fantastic article on orlah. I just planted some tree trees in my yard in Florida. I didn’t understand something from your article though. It said that there are certain things you have to know 100% from the nursery before you can say that a fruit is not orlah. Such as the pot was perforated 2.5 cm, that it wasn’t grown on a plastic sheet etc. But if you can’t get straight answers from the nursery, wouldn’t it be considered safek orlah and mutar? Secondly why would I have to call the nursery at all just like someone is not obligated to find out where the fruit he buys in the supermarket come from?  Can’t I just say safek orlah mutar?

I was interested in obtaining a book(s) on halachot pertaining to plants in Israel. (I'm not a farmer :)) I am not clear as to which book/books I should get. Could you please advise? Thank you

I received a bottle of olive oil from a farmer friend without kashrut certification. The oil is of excellent quality and intended for consumption. I refrained from eating it due to kashrut considerations. Is it permissible, lechatchilah, to light the Chanukah menorah with this oil? Does the fact that there may be kashrut issues render the oil unusable (i.e., should it be discarded)?

We have limited space in our garden in Chu"L and would like to add additional fig varieties without installing more trees in-ground. Is it permissible to do a multi-graft fig tree (i.e. a fruit salad fig tree), since they are all figs on a fig rootstock--or is there an issue of maris ayin? If there is an issue of maris ayin, could this be mitigated by only grafting similar colored figs (i.e. multiple green figs on together)?