Nah, not really. What I did was waited until a Saturday, potted the popped ones, then waited a week and planted the one or two stragglers the next Saturday. Pretty much after that, I didn't have any that popped. However what you might do is something I just recently started. Take unpopped seeds, put them in water, if they floated, I pitched them. If they sank, I threw into a bucket with natural dirt from my back yard. Then I forget about them. I think I will check on them about April and see if anything is going on.

I didn't realize reed grass was anything special or tender, since it's everywhere here . I pulled mine out because it grew too tall in my garden. Replaced it and some other too tall grasses and shrubs to make room for hardy palms.

Wow, just found this forum. I've been making Pindo Palm Jelly for 4 years now. On you tube find Pindo Palm Jelly 1 and Pindo Palm Jelly 2. This is the recipe I follow. This year my tree has been very fruitful...4 "fronds" full of fruit, ripening slowly enough for me to keep up. This last one made 5 tall jars of 6 cups liquid each to use for jelly making. My pectin for three batches did not set up despite being in date so I was looking for directions how to fix it. I have 23 half pint jars to redo and 4 pints. Huge sigh, I've worked so hard already. First year I've had this problem. I love the jelly and give most of it away. So tomorrow a trip to the store for bottled lemon juice and then begin again.

Sorry for bumping this old thread, but I ran across it when I was looking for tips on growing date palms. I'm not concerned with getting fruit; if I do, and it happens to be "quality" eating fruit-- whee! That's a bonus! I just wanted to try planting a few pits just to see what would come up. So, I planted 7 pits and 6 have sprouted so far. By that, I mean that the first seed leaves are emerging and are now about an inch tall on the biggest ones, and growing noticeably every day. I soaked the seeds for 2 days, then placed them in medium in a baggie on my water heater for about 10 days. But, I tend to be forgetful so I moved then to pots on a warm sunny windowsill where I would see them and not forget them. I just kept the soil moist to the touch but not soggy, and now 6 have the green shoot. It took about 6 weeks or so to get this far, but they look vigorous as far as I can tell. It's heading into the late spring and rather warm days (almost 90 now) so I think they can go out to the patio for morning sun/afternoon filtered light. As long as I keep them just moist to touch-- not soggy, not parched-- I'm hoping that they'll continue to grow into a cool looking conversation piece to keep my pineapple plant company (also started from grocery store fruit for the fun of it, more than the actual fruit). That pineapple plant is a cool looking plant, BTW, and it was basically "free", other than the 99 cents that I spent for the pineapple that I ate to get the top as an afterthought experiment! Most of my cool plants are freebies that I grew from 'found' seeds or from fruit that I bought at the store, or from pinchings or volunteer seedlings of things that I found on a bike ride or a walk, or that I got from or traded with someone else -- I'm just a cheap bastage, LOL!! These pits? From a snack of dates that I bought from a bin at the organic grocer when I was on a bike ride... "Hmmm, I wonder if I can plant these pits?" Answer: "Yes!" Hopefully, I'll have some pretty palm plants in a few years. :)