This AbsolutelyBarredBuff said:It is all in what you like, and are use to using and eating.
For us, keeping root veggies and gourds "fresh" is the most convenient both from a "preserving" point of view as well as a food prep point of view. We don't like canned veggies (other than hubs' love for French-style seasoned green beans so I do up some each summer) so we freeze rather than can the veggies that won't keep "fresh". I've had many comments on this forum about the amount of fruit we can each year, and for us it's a necessity.
Our family eats a lot of fruit year round, so we buy it/pick it when it is in season and can it (peaches, pears, apples, applesauce, fruit cocktail, low-sugar jams) or freeze it (saskatoon berries, raspberries) to supplement the boredom of winter-available fruit (which for us is pretty much apples, oranges, and bananas because everything else is super expensive if you buy it out of season). Local (well BC) apples are a fall crop, so are generally priced ok around here September thru March, then they usually go up a bit into the spring and especially the summer months when their quality goes down due to storage time. Oranges are an imported fall/winter crop and are generally priced ok around here November thru June. Bananas grow in the tropics and are imported, but we like them, and they seem to be the same price year-round so we buy then when we want to eat them.
On the apple side of things, we are seriously looking at buying a second-hand fridge for our basement to keep crates of apples in because we can get good organic apples for a song in September/October and it would be so nice to stock up and have a ready supply. But they need cold storage to really last, we can only do so much with our basement--and canned apples are just not the same as eating a fresh apple out of hand.