Q&A

I want to grow a blueberry bush at home. You wrote that orlah applies to hydroponically grown trees. What about aeroponics?

 I want to grow a blueberry bush in my house hydroponically, using water and fertilizer. The bush produces fruit by its second year. Does orlah apply to trees grown hydroponically?

Are trees grown indoors, in unperforated pots, subject to orlah laws?

I heard that passionfruit is treated like a tree by Ashkenazim and thus obligated in orlah laws. So, my question is if we're allowed to eat passionfruit products (not the fruit - the products), like ice cream, juice, and the like when they are imported from outside Israel?

I planted a passionfruit vine as a living fence. Do I have to wait three years to eat the fruit?

There are avocados in the supermarket (I live in New York) stamped "Israel." Should I be concerned about orlah? I know it's de'oraita in Israel, and safek de'oraita lechumrah.

My question is about sefichin in my vegetable garden. B"H, I have a thriving vegetable patch in my yard. This upcoming shemitah I'm not planning on growing anything; I will let it lie fallow. My question is about the crops that are now flowering and growing. I have crops that I planted at three different times:

1. An eggplant bush planted a year and a half ago, which has been producing beautiful eggplants for several months already.
2. A kale bush, planted more than 10 months ago, now big and beautiful.
3. Various vegetables planted six months ago: tomatoes, cucumbers, pumpkin, butternut squash, and eggplant. Some of the vegetables are already past the point of the pinnacle of their growth, but the pumpkin patch, for instance, is now at the height of its growth.

From what I understood, it is possible that these crops would be considered sefichin and will be forbidden to eat during the shemitah year (unless I uproot them before shemitah begins). I thought, though, that maybe because the plants are veteran—planted between six to eighteen months ago—they might not be included in the prohibition.

I would like to receive your answer on the matter. Do I need to uproot all of my vegetables before shemitah due to the sefichin prohibition?

Is it a problem to grate the rind of a lemon with kedushat shevi'it in order to add it to a cake (instead of discarding it in the pach shevi'it)?

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 initially planted mint in my garden 50 cm away from my tomato plant. Later on, the mint spread towards the tomatoes. Is it necessary to cordon off the mint and uproot some of it?