Evergreen love for Jill and Allan
Six decades happily married, and in the vegetable business
Back in the day, young women started arriving into Katikati to start their teaching careers at the local primary school. Jill Collett was one of them and Allan Noble from Kauri Point noticed the newbie straight away.
“Each year, two new teachers would turn up into town,” Allan says. “We knew too much about the local girls, we went to school with them. So there was always potential.”
Jill says she was “teacher number seven” at Katikati Primary School.
The two meet at St Paul’s Presbyterian Church and were soon talked into a double date with friends.
“The first time Allan came to my house, he and my father talked tractors all night. He was very impressed because Allan had manners,” Jill says.
Three years later they married. The two — who own Katikati’s famous The Onion Vegie Place — celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary today. They married on February 2, 1963, at St Enoch’s Presbyterian Church in Tauranga.
Jill and Allan’s special day also fell on Katikati’s special day of the popular A&P Show.
They got some stick from guests for unwittingly selecting this day.
“Our wedding guests didn’t let us forget it,” Jill says. But the 200 guests were happy to attend and to get out
of town for the day.
“Most of them were farmers so everyone had to get home to milk so it was all over by half past two.”
Not one, not two, but four ministers helped officiate the wedding. Two were a surprise.
“There was the minister who
married my parents, our Katikati minister and the St Enoch’s minister was invited along. And then, we think, the fourth one was from Bible class.”
The night of the wedding the family went back to Jill’s father’s place but the local council had dug a trench for drainage right outside the house.
They had to “walk the plank” to get across.
Twenty five years later, on their anniversary, the same thing happened.
1963 was a big year for the couple. They married and bought the farm just outside of Katikati where they’ve lived ever since. They also got a new car.
At the time it was a dairy farm, but Allan wanted to be a market gardener so he started working the land straight away.
The first two crops he grew were onions and pumpkins. Jill stayed on as a teacher, but worked on the farm fulltime when son Leigh was born.
After 18 months of hard graft, they started selling second-grade produce from their gate. They started off with just four customers per day.
Further crops included greens such as broccoli, cabbages and all leafy vegetables. They grew strawberries for eight years. Later, sales moved to the big shed.
The Onion and Vegie Shop is probably best known for the large, fresh broccoli heads they grow.
They now run an online delivery service, Growlink, developed by their son Leigh. The service supplied many homes from Tauranga to Whangamata¯ with fresh produce throughout the Covid-19 lockdowns.
“We have a great climate here and you can grow good veges all year round. There’s no excuse for having to buy processed food,” Allan says.
Jill also encourages people to keep busy into their 80s.
“Our success is based on, we know what’s going on in the world and we keep very active.”
The couple are often asked what the secret to a good marriage is, and to long life.
“Keep it simple,” Allan says. “You need good food, a comfortable place you can relax and a good bed to sleep in. The rest is irrelevant.”
Allan and Jill both turn 82 this year. They have two children, Leigh and Nicky, two grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.
— Extra reporting Karin du Plessis
Our success is based on, we know what’s going on in the world and we keep very active. Jill Noble, market gardener