Cherry Hill’s only working farm is about to get a lot bigger. Springdale Farm, which the Jarvis family has operated since 1949, has won a bid from Cherry Hill Council to grow crops on nine acres of the township-owned Holly Ravine Farm, reconnecting the historic Evesham and Springdale Roads property to agriculture for the first time in years.
Under the arrangement, Springdale will pay the township $1,000 a year for a five-year lease, according to the Inquirer. Springdale was the only bidder for the lease, the paper reported. The portion of the land not being farmed, primarily the woods and the ravine itself, will remain recreational space, open to the public.
A Cover Crop First, Then a Decision on What to Plant
Before any produce goes in the ground, Springdale plans to plant a cover crop on the new acreage, per the same account. Clayton Jarvis, who is 28 and holds a plant biology degree from Rutgers University, called the new acreage an exciting challenge and said the farm has not yet settled on what to grow there long-term.
Jarvis farms alongside his older brother, Alan, at the family’s 85-acre Springdale Farm, a business their grandparents founded and where their parents, Tom and Mary Ann Jarvis, remain active at the farm market even in retirement. Jarvis said the nine Holly Ravine acres could, in a given year, supply the farm’s entire tomato crop or roughly half its sweet corn crop, and that the land gives him another option for sustainable crop rotation. Other Springdale staff include John Ebert, who works at the farm, and Michala Jarvis, who runs the farm market’s bakery.
Deer and Dry Ground Pose Early Hurdles
Two practical obstacles stand between Springdale and a full harvest at Holly Ravine. One is the local deer population, which may require erecting a fence around the new fields, the Inquirer reported. The other is irrigation, since the site currently lacks the water infrastructure Springdale would need and may require drilling a well…