Help with my first plant pls :)

Hi all,

Im new to the forum and new to growing plants as well. I am gonna confess up front here and say that this first effort of mine to date has been haphazard and often neglectful! Its lucky dope is a fairly hardy weed!

So i'll list my few questions first and then tell you what i have done to date with the process so you have some info.

1) Is my plant actually a female . I bet this is a common question. I have uploaded some photos.

2) If it is a female given that i've been a bit slack thus far what can/should i do to give the poor plant some love and respect. Is there stuff i can do to increase yield or quality at this stage in the process? I have started giving potassium in some of the waterings and just giving it more water in general.

3) I have added a photo to show most of the plant so you can see the shape. I topped the plant once when it was much younger but thats it for pruning. Just a couple weeks ago i tied down a side branch a little to hopefully let more light into the middle cause it is getting very bushy. Can i do anything else here? Originally i wanted to do some sort of sea of green thing but being a slacker i didn't and its now up to my mid thigh. Can i do training now or is it to late?



Ok so what i did. : I got some seeds from a friend and i had no idea how they were stored etc ( i got them in an envelope). I was told it came from a great smoke. I took 5 of the seeds and germinated them in a paper towel. One germinated after several days (maybe a week) and then one more another week or longer later (which i promptly forgot about :S). The first seed to germinate i planted into what was/is its final pot in a mix of mushroom compost and vermiculite both of which i had lying around (i am a permaculture student). Initially i just popped it under a desk lamp with one of those energy efficent bulbs and let it go. I suspect i put in too much vermiculite cause i checked the soil regularly at first and it stayed damp between waterings for about 2 weeks? Oh i also mulched the whole thing when the plant got a bit bigger with lucerene. At this point i kinda forgot about it! Finally i realised it need more than a desk lamp so i moved it out to the shed (where i propagate seedlings etc) and put it under a growlight and moved it to 12/12 cause i read somewhere it can grow 3 times bigger during the flowering phase and it was already getting big! I also change bulbs in my grow area (which is just a 1x1 mtr) from a vegetative bulb to a flowering one too.
A guide that i read said it should go into flowering in a day or 2 - so i waited and waited , now about 2.5 months later i think it may just have gone to flower though i thought that once before about a month ago - but all the "flowers" just grew into MORE leaves! I even had a friend who has grown plants look at it briefly and he also said "oh yeah its just about to go sexual" but that was again about a month ago! Hopefully someone can tell me now if these new clusters of growth are indeed flowers?

During its growth the plant got a couple doses of worm wee but thats it for extra food. I would describe it as very bushy with a lot of long narrow finger leaves.

I have no idea why it is/was taking so long to flower? Is this common? How important is the 12 hours TOTAL dark? I lined my timer up loosely with the sun but the shed is not totally light tight and it may have got some very mild weak dawn light for an hour in the morning before the timer officially came on. Could that have totally thrown it? Or could it have been the fact that i was essentially growing it out of its natural environment and opposite to its natural growth cycle. I live in the mountains and it gets quite cold (just below snow line) and i grew it through winter. Its early spring now.

About a week a go i was looking at it and thinking of trying to train/spread it out cause it was getting very bushy in the middle and i accidentally split one of the main branches. So first i panicked and immediately bound it up. Could the stress of that injury on the plant push it to flower? The wound is still bound up but the branch seems fine infact has the largest potential flowers on it and lots of new growth so i think its healed/healing ok.

Ok i think thats all the info i have. If anyone out there has answers to my questions or any other tips for what i should do now/ next i would be really grateful!!

Cheers

 

thanks all - a girl! No i know what to look for. I suppose i should take a couple clones of this one.