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Tracy,

About half the plants in our gardens here are from saved seed and we've been 
doing it for quite some time.   In general the advice on seed saving is 
overworked.  Have you had the experience of leaving some beans or peas in the 
garden 
too long and when you shell the mushy pods, you find the seeds have sprouted! 
  You really can't keep a good seed down.

The first thing I'd proviso is the distance between plantings to keep the 
seed pure.  I read and article on NewFarm.org about Mexican farmers of 
criollo 
corn grown right beside hybrid and even GMO corn.  Aren't you afraid of cross 
pollination?  the farmers were asked.  No, they said, we can tell which ears 
are 
true to seed.  My experience  tends to make me think they can.  I grow OP 
white corn (Hickory King), red corn (Bloody Butcher), some blue corn I 
originally 
got from Native Seeds, and the Oaxacan Green, each plot separated by about 
50',. far too close to save pure seed say the experts.   But the seed color 
and 
characteristics in corn show up in the first generation and while the red 
corn 
will have a white kernel or two on the edges of the patch and the white will 
have a red or two, those from the center of the patch (about 40'x50' in each 
case) seem to be true to seed and I've saved my own seed from them for more 
than 15 years and still get true to type.

I also go against all advice and save seed potatoes.   The conventional 
wisdom is that potatoes (and strawberries and raspberries) will accumulate 
viral 
diseases and the yields will go down.  Close record keeping will support this 
notion until you look at it differently.  The yield down't go DOWN, it goes 
back 
to normal!  A completely isolated seedstock of potatoes ... well, tain't 
natrual, says I ...  Once there is the initial drop in yield from the 
potatoes 
with no immune capabilities in their genes, the yield levels off and then 
begins 
to go up.  Also, the difference is quite small if the potatoes are grown 
completely organically.  I've grown some of my potatoes from the same 
seedstock for 
thirteen years.

Cleaning and grading the seeds is only of interest if you are going to sell 
them (or perhaps if you are going to exchange them, but it is easier to cull 
out your trading partners than your seeds, I've found).  Because of very 
intensive methods on this homestead, I've solved the germination problem by 
growing 
just about everything from transplants.  With some provisoes you can 
transplant 
anything, even carrots, so long as you understand how they grow.  By 
transplanting from flats, any low germination rate doesn't make its way to 
the growing 
beds.   Yet I've found that my uncleaned, irregular sized seeds germinate 
with a very high germination rate.

Most of the rest is common sense.  Seeds can't be allowed to remain damp nor 
get too hot.  Freezing doesn't hurt them and in fact some have to layered, go 
through a freeze-thaw cycle before they will germinate.

The sources telling how long seeds remain viable is not to be relied upon, 
they are far too short probably for conservativism's sake.  Peppers are the 
first to go but I've planted five year old pepper seeds and got 50% 
germination.  
I've planted seven year old pepper seeds, however, and gotten 0% germination. 
 
Beans last medium long.  Fifteen year old seeds are usually fine.  Corn will 
last longer than you will.  Some corn has germinated after 2000 years.

Saving seed only seems like a complicated affair only until one tries it.