PORTLAND – An old-fashioned apple tasting is a good way to sample delicious fruits before planting the trees in your backyard orchard.

Portland Nursery has been throwing such a shindig for 16 years now. I attended one of the two weekend Gourmet Apple Tastings recently. Dozens of plates of nibble sized apple samples greeted visitors, who gathered like feasting yellow jackets. A dozen or so pears and Asian pears rounded out the sample offerings. A children’s tent offered pumpkin painting, a miniature hay maze and other activities, while the sounds of our very own Clatsop County-based band, the Muddy Bottom Boys, wafted over the happy samplin’ crowd.

From the 40 tasting apples offered that day at Portland Nursery, here is what I liked.

Ben Shogun Fujiis a Fuji sport that, besides sounding as if it’s my son’s action hero name, tastes juicy and sweet.

Braeburn ripens late and keeps well. Very snappy and good for cooking and eating.

Criterion came about as a chance seedling in Washington state and has turned into a premier, sweet and juicy dessert apple.

Erwin Bauer rhymes with sour, and sour it is. Surely there’s a place for sour apples, however, and this lightly red striped variety should be appreciated.

Ginger Golden, a chance seedling from West Virginia, made only its second appearance at the Gourmet Apple Tasting. Its ‘Ginger’ moniker comes from the golden-tinged flesh. Ginger Golden stores well for fresh eating and matures early in Oregon – late August.

Honey Crisp has been rated superior to McIntosh and Delicious for fresh eating and I’d have to agree.

Mutsu, a cross between Golden Delicious and Japanese Indo is another good dessert apple that is excellent for cooking and baking. Check out the distinctive, spicy flavor.

Whether or not the above apples are appropriate for North Coast gardens is a bit suspect. Apples generally like well-drained soil in an area with good air drainage, as well as as much sun as they can get. Hmmm. We have clay, fog, rain and, in some areas, lots of shade.

Justin Williams at the Clatsop County OSU Extension Service office relayed these suggestions to me of trees for the coastal area and our low summer temperatures. Lodi matures between July 15-30 and offers yellow fruits that don’t keep. Early Gold comes to maturity Aug. 1-15, is yellow and crisp. Stark Summer Treat matures Aug. 1-15 and offers red apples with a good flavor. Summer Red ripens Aug. 1-15 and is red with a good flavor. Gravenstein ripens Aug. 15-30, and is pollinated by Lodi. Gravensteins are considered to be the best sauce apple for the coast.

Into September, Jonamac ripens Sept. 1-10 and offers a red, McIntosh-like apple. Elstar ripens Sept. 10-20 with tart, good apples that favor a cool climate. From Sept. 15-25, you can find Gala, with a sweet, good flavor. The tree is heat tolerant. Jonagold comes in at the same time, with big, good flavored fruits. Jonagold likes a cool climate and needs a pollinator. Finally, Spartan ripens from Sept. 20-30, and produces red apples.

Also, you might want to consider planting scab resistant varieties. Apple scab shows up as velvety dark spots on the leaves of apple and crabapple trees. As the infection becomes more severe, leaves may turn yellow, and eventually drop off. Susceptible trees will drop a lot of leaves during the summer, so that by mid-summer they may have only half or less of their foliage. An alternative is to plant scab-immune varieties, among them Redfree, a medium-small crisp, sweet red apple that matures in late August. Chehalis matures in August, and offers big, yellow apples and a long picking season. Prima matures in early September, bringing on big, red apples. Nova Easygro matures mid-September, with a good flavor. Liberty, considered by some to be the best-flavored red apple, matures in late September.

Here’s something my mother, a consummate fruit tree grower and caretaker, advises. As for cider-making, you might want to consider choosing a variety of apples that come in at the same time. For eating, choose varieties that ripen at different times. I’d suggest seeking out a good nursery person to help you make your decision. Our local nurseries carry fine selections of fruit trees in the spring. We’ve found that spending a bit more on a tree upfront can save you from the disappointment of poor fruit production later.

Another good resource is Raintree Nursery in Morton, Wash. Although a bit of a drive from us, the nursery can easily become a day trip if you choose to take in Raintree’s experimental orchard. There you can pick and taste apples and get a sense of each variety’s growing habits. Raintree puts out a helpful catalog featuring flavorful and disease resistant apple varieties for backyard growers. Raintree specializes in apple varieties that keep, so that, with planning, a family can have apples off of trees from August to May.

In terms of care, here’s what you should be doing now in the backyard apple orchard.

Treat for pests using dormant oil. This oil is best applied when trees are dormant, November through March, after all the leaves have fallen and before the bud break in the spring. Mix with water as directed and spray to all surfaces of the trunk, branches and twigs. Apply when the temperature is expected to rise during the day; temperatures below 35 degrees can damage the bark. Dormant oil controls aphids, scale, spider mites, and many other insects by desiccating or smothering eggs and larvae.

Also, pick up dropped fruit, dead branches and leaves around your fruit trees. This gets rid of lots of the larvae, cocoons, and eggs that winter-over in plant debris and soil.

A liquid application of lime-sulfur in early spring, before buds open, will control fungal and bacterial diseases such as fire blight, scab, bacterial blights and anthracnose. Spray three times during the dormant seasons, usually December through February.

As for fertilization, do so after spring bloom, and then only if your tree appears to be lacking adequate nutrition. You can check this by judging the leaf size and color, compared to a previous year. Lots of other factors – disease, winter injury, root injury, soil compaction, pest damage, limited moisture, poor weather or bad drainage – can also produce a less than healthy tree. If your apple tree does need fertilizing, it is probably nitrogen that it lacks. You can broadcast it sparely around the entire canopy of the tree. Clumps can burn a young apple tree, so scatter well.

Cathy Peterson belongs to the Clatsop County Master Gardener Association. “In the Garden” runs weekly in Coast Weekend. Please send comments and gardening news to “In the Garden,” The Daily Astorian, P.O. Box 210, Astoria, OR 97103 or online to peterson@pacifier.com

The holidays are almost here; poinsettias for saleThe Hilda Lahti Elementary School Student Council has an offer for you.

Youngsters will once again sell poinsettias to raise money for school activities. For $8.50, you can get a fresh, live red, white, pink or marbled poinsettia grown by Pleasant Valley Greenhouse in Boring.

The six-inch pots are wrapped and the grower promises florist quality plants. Students will be selling the plants through Oct. 31 and payment is due at the time of order. Pleasant Valley Greenhouse will deliver the plants to Hilda Lahti Dec. 8, with home delivery to follow shortly after that time.

For more information, or to order, call (503) 458-6162.