Lore has it that the ideal environment for date palms is "with their feet in the water and with their heads in the fires of the heavens."
A native of Qatif selects only the ripest dates for his basket, thereby allowing more air and sun to reach greener dates hidden deep inside the clusters.From the Aug. 8, 1990 edition of The Arabian Sun.
Dates have just come in season. However, they will remain popular and tasty throughout the month of August and into September, when, at their peak, they are tasty, sweet and tender.
perhaps that's why you now see so many people climbing date palms in Dhahran to grab a handful of the tempting fruit.
Al-Hasa farmers have about 40 words to describe the variety of date trees in their oasis, raning from the red "Khunayzi" to the yellow "khulas." The date tree's stages of development provide another five words, from "hambambu," the infancy, to "tamr," blooming maturity. The generic term for the date palms in this area is nakhl.
People in the West usually only come into contact with dates commercially when they are fully ripened. However, dates are edible at any stage of growth and development, including "khalal" (green dates), "busr" or "balah" (early stage of ripeness), "rutab" (half yellow, or red, and half-ripened, and "tamr," all brown.
Two of Saudi Arabia's largest date-growing oases, Qatif and al-Hasa, are located close to Dhahran. Many of the date orchards in al-Hasa and Qatif are centuries old and many of the trees have been yielding fruit for more than a century.
— The Arabian Sun: August 08, 2023