It was a great pleasure to introduce Mike Kiessel at the Master Gardener College event held Saturday 6/22/13 at Michigan State University!  Mike proved once again that if you have any questions on saving vegetable seeds, he's the guy to ask.  We're fortunate to have him as a contributor to this blog.  And why not save seeds?  It's fun, saves money, and helps preserve some of the wonderful heirloom vegetable varieties that are getting hard to find.  More of these treasures disappear every year.  And it allows the seed saver to select for preferred plant characteristics and for strains that get better adapted to local soil and microclimate conditions every year.
Mike Davis