Growing Date Palms From Seed

Recently my auntie gave me some Ajwah date fruit she got while she was in Medina in Saudi Arabia. I absolutely love dates and have always heard that dates have a lot of health benefits. While I was enjoying my dates, I decided to Google what the health benefits actually are. Somehow, I came across an article and discovered that it’s actually possible to grow date palms indoors using the seeds. I’m not sure why, but the thought hadn’t crossed my mind that they are grown from seed. Some people have even managed to have some success in crappy weather like we have in the UK.

While they didn’t really get a nice big, beautiful date palm tree, they did get some nice looking (but small) palms trees.

I started to wonder if I could grow some date palms in my small flat. My curiosity got the better of me, and I decided to give it a go and see what happens. It could be a small fun side experiment. 🙂

Living in London, I don’t expect them to live very long if it even works. The weather isn’t really suited for growing date palm trees especially as I am starting at the beginning of November while it’s already cold, and going to get colder, but I still want to try to see how it goes.

I started by gathered a bunch of date seeds. I am using the seeds from the Ajwah dates I received from my auntie, and seeds from Jordanian Medjool dates I bought from a local grocery store.

Medjool dates are absolutely delicious. They are large and very sweet. Ajwah dates aren’t as big or as sweet as Medjool dates, but they are still extremely good.

Reading on various pages, and watching YouTube videos, I soaked the seeds in water for around one week, changing the water every day to avoid the growth of mould. I don’t really know much about plants, or gardening or anything like that, but I think this is done to soften the outer shell and speed up germination time, and dissolve away any remaining fruit and sugars.

After one week, I put the seeds into a damp kitchen towel and put them in a cheap plastic food container, and put it on top of my water boiler where it should stay quite warm.

I forgot to take photos before I started, but if the seeds start to grow roots, I will make a secondary post with updates and photos. 🙂

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