Springdale Farm Market customers can set their calendars based on merchandise available at its location along the Cherry Hill road of the same name.
“The summer is definitely for corn and tomatoes…in the fall it is pumpkins and cold crops (like) lettuce, kale spinach, broccoli,” Michala Jarvis, granddaughter of the farm’s original owners, Alan Ebert and Mary Ebert, told 70and73.com.
In all ways, Alan and Mary’s relatives still own and operate the business that first opened its doors in 1949.
“My mother, Mary Ann, and my father, Tom Jarvis, and my uncle, John Ebert are…the figureheads of the business right now and still very much involved,” she said.
More proof of Springdale Farm Market being family-owned and operated can be found by taking a wider look at the family tree. Michala Jarvis, 22, runs the bakery, while her brother, Clayton Jarvis, 24, conducts much of the farming and another brother, Alan Jarvis, 27, handles the mechanical side of things.
All three children use the skills gleaned from a lifetime of watching family members and their own educations to keep the business running.
“I went to culinary school up in Rhode Island at Johnson and Wales because that’s where I really found my passion,” Jarvis said.
Clayton, the main farmer, went to school for plant biology. Alan went to school for mechanical engineering.
“He’s super-into always trying to bring things up to the 21st century and (figuring out) how can we make this more efficient,” she said.
Although Springdale Farm Market was once known as one of Campbell Soup’s vegetable suppliers, the 74-year-old business has more recently become known for helping establish standards in forms of entertainment such as corn mazes and hayrides and winning Camden County Historical Society’s Historic Preservation Award.
The farm has staying power in a heavily developed suburb that exploded in population during the Baby Boom Generation.
For more than 100 years, what was known as Delaware Township was covered in farms and orchards. In 1961, referendum voters in Delaware Township, which was established in 1844, decided to change its name to Cherry Hill. Today, some of the only testaments to the town’s agricultural history are names of housing developments, such as Barclay Farm and Old Orchard.
Farmland in Cherry Hill has become a hot topic among residents since early April when 70and73.com reported that the property owners of the former Holly Ravine Farm, also on Springdale Road, were selling to a Dallas developer that wants to build 175 assisted- and independent-living apartment units for seniors. A special meeting and public hearing on the Holly Ravine plan are scheduled for next Wednesday.
The sustainability of Springdale Farm, operated by a third generation, might never have happened after a 1988 fire destroyed its farm market.
“It was a very difficult phase, as you can imagine,” Michala Jarvis said. “In the middle of the night, (the family) lost everything.”
She learned details of the fire and its aftermath from older family members.
“It was a slow rebuild, and we had the main greenhouse we worked out of for a few years,” said Jarvis, who noted that a supportive community made the tough times easier.
Customers were saying things like: “We’re so happy you’re here,” “We’re here to support you through all of this,” she said, adding the words were a such morale boost at a time when many would just give up.
Since the fire, Springdale Farm Market has added several features, including a new red building (the one closest to the parking lot). That building often contains a variety of in-season annual and perennial flowers, seeds for planting, products that accentuate the produce the business sells and seasonal home décor.
The bakery also was established after the fire, when the same pumpkin bread and banana bread that Jarvis’ mother made in college began to show up on the shelves at Springdale Farm Market, according to Jarvis.
Each year, Cherry Hill Township Department of Public Works sends leaves from homeowners to the farm to be turned into compost. Every day, items sold at Springdale Farm are on the menus at South Jersey restaurants such as Ponzio’s Diner, Tortilla Press and The Farm and Fisherman Tavern, according to Jarvis.
Springdale Farm has also established a loyal following for its tomatoes, Jarvis said.
“We grow a unique variety that not a lot of other growers have,” she explained. She declined to say what type of tomato it was, even when pressed, but did add: “It has a softer flesh with a sweet flavor.”
That tomato, along with the strawberries, blueberries, lettuce and many other fruits and vegetables that Springdale Farm sells, fall under the mission of “grow to eat, not to ship,” she said.
“Occasionally, in the summer, we’ll bring our crops to wholesale markets in Philly, but our main focus is…trying to grow with the pulse and with the community desires,” she said.
As Jarvis sees it, Springdale Farm Market will remain open for the children of current customers, their offspring and so on. In addition, the business will continue to be owned and operated by the decedents of Alan and Mary Ebert, she added.
“We love who we are, we’re proud of who we are and what we’re able to accomplish here,” she said. “We’re always trying to evolve with the changing times as much as possible while maintaining our farming roots as well as deriving natural products that people want.”
Source: 70 and 73
