Hey are you in Atlanta or around the city? We have a yahoo atlanta fruits group that does discuss this kind of thing, so if you live close, join up!
Right now the sweetest, most delicious thing are the strawberries! Right now I'm eating the once bearing (per year) the everbearings are huge and are just coming into season in the next day or two. In a bed that is 25x2 we've had 10lbs so far.

Hi GGG, I am in North GA. We had a strawberry bed from 2007 to 2010 but I ripped it out at the end of the season because tending the bed was such hard work and now we miss them because they were the first thing to ripen after the cold weather passed. I probably would have just kept suffering in silence if the berries had been sweet and delicious but they weren't so what variety do you have? Maybe we will try again. Thanks for sharing.

How does your group share information?

I think I have everbearing. They are sweet yet tart with good flavor. I grow them in a raised bed, which was well mixed with manure and clay to begin with. Since then we've added some soil conditioner (to keep it a bit acidic) and mulched with leaves and then regular straw. The bed is narrow and on it's own, so it is fairly easy to maintain this way, I will eventually plant other beds as well, probably using the same method. The organic matter does attract a lot of bugs, so I sprinkle around and under the berries with diamotaceous earth and wash well before eating. I think berries are something you could manage to play around with the soil and the acidity and get a good flavor from.
The Yahoo group is like all of them - you can look online if you are registered, you may get a daily digest or get the emails as they come - which is usually how most of us are getting them. There are only a handful of folks on the list, and it's not overly (not annoyingly) active but active enough.

My favorite fruit that I grew last year was my oylimpic asian pear. When it was cold out of the fridge was extremely crisp and sweet. The tree does get fireblight strikes at my house and the stink bugs like to eat the pears. Also I have been growing a yellow, white seeded watermelon for about fours years that I save the seeds from that is excellent. I have no idea what the variety is. Will try orangeglo and tendersweet orange watermelons also this year.

Georgiagreen, how do you care for your pear tree and does the disease affect other things growing in your yard?

I am trying to grow several different apple and pear trees in my yard. The apples mainly get fire blight and cedar rust. The pears the same. Mainly I am just planting to see what can take the disease pressure with little to minimal spraying. Most of my trees are not that old. From reading the fruit and orchards forum here I have found immunox to be effective against rust on apple trees. (It seems yellow apples are more affected by this). Fire blight is my worst problem and for the moment I am just pruning out strikes as they happen and waiting to see what trees will handle it. Fire blight as far as I know does not affect any other of my trees just apples and pears. It also affects quince but I don't grow any. Shinko an asian pear has been my most resistant asian pear to fire blight getting only a couple strikes in three years. It ripens the last week of August at my house and is a good pear to. The oylimpic just had a little more butterscotch taste to it and was bigger.