I’ve written about the benefits of eating locally grown foods so many times that to do it again feels like preaching.

At the risk of having you get up from wherever you’re reading this and tune into a rerun of “Green Acres,” repeat after me:

1. Locally grown foods taste better because they are picked at peak flavor.

2. Eating foods grown near your home helps the planet because they don’t require large amounts of fuel for transport.

3. Buying foods grown in your area helps support local farmers.

That’s all well and good in warm-weather months, when we can go to a farmers market for tomatoes or to a farm stand for peaches.

Many of us grow produce and herbs in the back yard, too.

But it’s harder to put good intentions into practice when Jack Frost pays a visit.

Michael Higgins, chef and owner of Maldaner’s restaurant, says eating locally can be stepped up if people learn to eat with the seasons.

Instead of switching to supermarket asparagus in August, for example, replace asparagus in your diet with later-season veggies such as eggplant or cucumbers. And when the Bibb lettuce stops growing here, start eating Swiss chard or spinach.

“Instead of putting a pumpkin on your front porch, you can make a lot of soup or pasta with it,” he said during a presentation called Meet Your Local Producers, a farm expo held Nov. 22 at the Illinois State Fairgrounds.

“If you learn to cook through the seasons, it helps the farmers. They can diversify their crops,” Higgins added.

To extend the use of locally grown produce, farmer Garrick Veenstra of Veenstra’s Vegetables near Pana suggests cold storage of root vegetables.

“At the end of the farmers market, ask a farmer to bring you 10 pounds of potatoes that haven’t been washed,” he said, noting that washing cuts down on shelf life. Healthy root vegetables without abrasions and cuts can be stored in a shallow pit in the ground covered with eight to 12 inches of mulch, such as straw or hay.

“Most root crops will survive a frost. Store them in a way that replicates nature,” he said.

Sean Keeley, owner of Ross Isaac restaurant, recommends being adventurous about trying new foods. He recalled being stumped when a friend gave him sunchokes, a root vegetable also known as Jerusalem artichokes.

“I had never cooked with them before, but it’s amazing the results you can get with them,” he said.

Kathryn Rem can be reached at kathryn.rem@sj-r.com.