I'm not a soil grower so I don't feel qualified to give advice - I do know that your soil doesn't appear to be very good quality, plus there is not any perlite in it for aeration. A plant will not grow very well in a container without good drainage - roots need oxygen. Maybe a soil grower will be able to help with your problem. Just to give you a comparison - this plant is 4 weeks old from sprout. Good luck.
It has a layer of gravel at the bottom for drainage and that is just a small layer of compost on the top I used organic tomato soil that I saw someone recommended on this site. But it does look way behind that one...
Hopefully a good soil grower will chime in to help you out. Not all growers are the same - try Buzzer777 for some good advice and avoid The Widow White's advice.
Thanks for your help I really appreciate it! I forgot one piece of information the buddy who gave it to me came over and looked at it about a week and a half ago and when he did he pulled some new leaf growth off that had barely started growing he said it would make it split and I would get a higher yield? Did it in 2 or 3 places
Personally I think your plant is not large enough or healthy enough to top at this point. Just my opinion.
It's doing fine, he topped it in a couple of places from what I see. It looks like he did an ok job at it. It should recover in a couple days with more branches than before. First grow using cfls.
The yeild is, not always but usually, directly related to the skill level of the grower... This isn't meant to discourage but only to help you have the proper expectations. You gotta put in the time to learn but reading online. Then try to implement it in your grow.
Im using good organic compost that I make from soured bags of feed rabbit and chicken manure( I work at a feedstore) besides not over watering or under watering is there anything else I need to look out for?
Looks good. You can keep tieing it down like that and wrap it around the pot. Look up "LST" on Google for more info. As for soil idk if you picked the greatest mix as it sounds like you dont really have drainage in the soil. Only way to fix that is transplanting into better soil. But this plant looks to small and you may damage roots