farm links and parasitic wasps

Its fun to read about real farmers, especially this summer with the bumper crops. Here are a few links I've come across:

Shared Harvest Blog
Riverland CSA Farm (Sunderland MA) newsletter
Waltham Fields newsletters

I emailed yesterday and asked Piccadilly Farm what they did to get rid of corn ear worms this year. Susie told me they are using a parasitic wasp that feeds on the European Corn Borer. Well it sure worked great. I will look into this but I hear it is expensive. Maybe other gardeners would want to share an order. I can't very well keep them in my plot anyway.

I also read in a Waltham Fields news letter (July 26) that they are using these for the Mexican Bean beetle. I wonder if it is the same wasp species as the one that parasitizes the corn worms? Hmmm. I hate those ugly bean beetle larvae. The newsletter says that over a few years, the wasp population should go up and the beans beetle go down. So the wasps don't need to be purchased every year forever. I'm also wondering how far they travel. My plot is only about 1 mile from Waltham Fields.