Great Growing Cucumbers! Columbus Returns To Coast: On The Second Voyage: end of March,1494

After starting another fort in the interior of this place, Columbus, according to his son, needed more food and set off again to return March 21, 1494 to Isabel. On the way back he passed a helpful troop of mules, headed south, sending his forces more food. But rains had swelled the banks of a river and he was delayed for some days. He looked for another place to ford the river, and while there, ate the produce some of the locals offered, like peppers and casavas. In the end it took him eight days to return.

In the meantime, seeds sown at the beginning of the year at Isabela had already borne fruit.

"On Saturday, 29 March, he came back to Isabela, where they had grown melons ripe enough to eat, although the seed had only been sown two months before. Cucumbers also were grown in twenty days, and a wild vine of the country though not fully grown had produced good, large bunches of grapes.

The next day, 30 March, a farmer gathered ears from wheat which had only been sown at the end of January. They also gathered chick-peas bigger than the stock from which they were grown. The seeds of all the plants they sowed came up in three days and on the twnty-fifth day were ready to eat. Fruit stones produced seedlings and vine shoots produced tendrils, both in seven days, and unripe grapes could be gathered in twenty-five. Sugar cane germinated in seven days also. All this was attributable to the mildness of the climate, which was much like that of our own country, being cool rather than hot, but also to the rains in these parts, which are very cold, light and good for growth."

The Admiral was delighted with the climate, the fertility and the local people. This list of times he gives when crops came up is significant for two reasons. One, his men could be quickly fed with seeds they brought and they could probably continue to grow foods his men knew and could easily digest. Significant for morale as well as self-reliance. But also, this meant that future expeditions and settlements in this land could also hope to sustain themselves in much the same way. This ease of growing produce also turned into part of the fantastic allure of the entirety of this exotic and abundantly fruitful place. One of many stories inflated to spread the news about this new world.
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pp 164-5:  The Four Voyages, Christopher Columbus, edited, translated and with an introduction by JM Cohen, for The Penguin Group, London, 1969