Creative Focus
Documenting Ashe County’s Agricultural Heritage with Money on a String
By Elizabeth Baird Hardy
Most of us spare very little thought for the processes required to bring various foodstuffs to our stores and tables. While we may enjoy browsing the Farmers’ Market or the fresh produce at the supermarket, we seldom ponder how the green beans in the cans or the peas in the bags in the freezer came to be there. Many High Country residents would be shocked to learn that, until the 1970s, Ashe County was a major producer of green beans, supplying bushels every summer to canneries and other distributors. Although countless Ashe County residents worked each summer in the labor-intensive fields of green beans, picking bushels of heirloom bush and pole varieties, the story of these people and the role of green beans in the county’s social and economic history is one that is seldom remembered.
That forgotten history is the subject of a new documentary by award-winning filmmaker Kelley St. Germain of West Jefferson. Money on a String: The People who Picked the Beans in Ashe County, NC tells the remarkable story of how the production of one vegetable—the green bean—had a profound impact on the county and its people. In the early twentieth century, local famers discovered the benefits of expanding their small-scale green bean crops to large commercial operations. The story is told with maps, historic original photographs and footage, interpreters, interviews, and the remarkable aerial and scenic videography for which Germain Media is known.
Because the majority of the labor involved in producing green beans is connected to the harvesting process, many local residents, particularly women and children, were employed as pickers. Those who picked beans each summer were often as young as eleven or twelve years old, so there are many individuals who still remember their experiences of filling bushel baskets as quickly as they could to earn money for school clothes and savings. A number of those individuals, telling the stories of their own experience, help bring to life the account of the heyday of green bean production in Ashe County. Additional insights are provided by Extension Agents, historians, and farmers, including some modern-day farmers hoping to bring back Ashe County’s large patches of heirloom green beans.
“Farming is the biggest gamble in the world,” states Appalachian historian Bill Ward in the film, so it is no surprise that the story of Ashe County’s green bean empire is one fraught with ups and downs. Although long gone are the days of bustling bean markets and truckloads of children and women riding out to farms where they could earn ready cash for a day of bean picking, the impact of the green bean industry is beautifully documented by Money on a String, which preserves this easily overlooked aspect of High Country History. As the former bean pickers reminisce, laugh, and even sing, modern viewers will be transported to hot fields between towering rows of pole beans or hunched over rows of bush beans.
Selected for a number of prestigious film festivals in 2025, including the More than Decent Film Festival and the Farm to Film Fest, Money on a String is headed for wide release in November 2025. Although St. Germain is hopeful for the film’s success, he also sees it as a labor of love, an opportunity to preserve the authentic, unique voices and experiences of “real Appalachians,” people whose stories are valuable.
Preserving these stories is an important effort promoted by St. Germain and Appalachian Memory Keepers, a 501 (c) (3) nonprofit devoted to preserving and promoting Appalachia’s heritage and history. The documentary also draws upon the support of the Ashe Farm Life Museum, Ashe Extension Master Gardeners, and fourteen-year-old Michael Schott who composed and performed the original music featured in the film. Preserving the story of Ashe County’s bean-picking heritage has truly been a team effort.
It is also a delight to watch. While High Country residents of all ages should watch Money on a String in order to learn about an important part of local history, they will find it entertaining as well as informative. They will probably also find themselves wishing to eat some delicious heirloom beans like those from long ago, beans with real flavor, beans from Ashe County.
Money on a String will be available in wide release later this year.
To learn more about Money on a String, visit germainmedia.com, appalachianmemorykeepers.org, or the official movie website at moneyonastring.com.
To discover more about Ashe County and its agricultural history, check out the Mountain Farm Life Museum, the Victory Garden at the Museum of Ashe County History, or the North Carolina Extension Office in Ashe County.