Do you wonder whether planting edibles in your landscape is worth the work? If you are reluctantly considering your first garden or first in years, let me reassure you - from my experience and studies made by the National Gardening Association - that a garden pays you.

The average gardening family spends $70 a year on their garden if they grow all kinds of foods, $53 for only vegetable. It isn't like motorcycle racing or even golf. You can afford to try it. Especially since the average the return can reach $530.

Sixty cents of every dollar you spend in the supermarket goes for something other than food: transportation, processing, paper and plastic packaging, advertising, etc.

Vitamins and minerals, between fresh-picked and flown-in, prove the rare case where cheaper is better. Moreover, you can grow delicious varieties of fruits and vegetables that you can never buy. They aren't grown commercially because they won't stand up to mechanical harvesting, chemical ripening and delayed processing.

However, if you've tried gardening and really hate it, then forget it.

If you think, though, you might like to try, or try again, it is easy and inexpensive to start and sure to pay in more ways than you can imagine: better quality food, money savings, a family activity, food to share with others, and free and pleasant exercise. Florida gardening starts in the fall, so think about and make some plans.

Today's pick:

My son Mike has found that beans and potatoes produce the most. Roma beans fill up the garden, the kettle and the family better than any other kind. They sprawl but do not need support. The beans are large and flat and taste as good or better than any we've ever eaten, and we've tried many varieties.

Now's the time to:

•Mark your calendar: The next Jail Plant Sale is 8 a.m. to noon Aug. 7 at 520 Falkenburg Road, at the light at Windorst.

•Florida vegetable gardening starts in the fall, so make plans and order seeds.

•You'll find any information you need in bulletins free from the Extension Office and books on Florida gardening free from the library.