Mr.Intel's Journal: Gardening

So I like to garden and have now for the past 6 years. As a child I would plant seeds and water them with little extraneous thought. Now I have a good sunny location, a drip system, a tiller and plenty of (unhelpful) advice from other gardeners. However, there remains quite a few questions left unanswered.

• How does one capture seeds for subsequent years? I realize that things like peppers, sunflowers and corn are relatively easy to get seed from. What about keeping genetic purity/quality from season to season? Potatoes don't require "seed", but what about carrots and onions? I usually stop watering them to let them age before harvesting.
• New crops that I have little experience with. Instead of corn this year, my wife convinced me to plant beans. I have grown beans before but can't remember exactly how I did it. We are planting a "Kentucky Blue" hybrid that seems to offer the best of both varieties. However, it has been almost three weeks and the seeds have not germinated. I dug a few up to see what was happening and discovered a tap root underneath the seeds, but no shoot. Any ideas?
• Fertilization is always a tricky thing to get right. Things like soil type/temperature, drainage, watering method and crops all affect how much and what type of fertilizer to use. My question is: Does there exist some kind of online database for people to get specific soil requirements for different crops. Of all the hobbies that exist, gardening is one of the oldest, yet one of the least able to penetrate the web. All the information I seem to find is very inspecific or doesn't apply to me. Does anyone know of some good gardening links?
• Storing a year's harvest has always baffled me as well. My wife is a great canner and always stores things like tomatoes and salsa. However, how can you store corn, fruit or lettuce? It seems that unless you convert it to jam, freeze it or eat it straight away, there is no good method for these "perishables". I have a basement, which allows me to cold store my potatoes, carrots and onions. Any advice for those who wish to store food longer than a month or two?

I have a ton more questions, but I am patient and am willing to get some of these worked out over the course of the season. Perhaps there is room for a gardening.slashdot.com site? Not geeky enough I suppose...