Man... not to pour gasoline on a fire, but when I think of how much more bud mass you could be packing onto those plants over the next 2 or 3 weeks (which is how far out they really are) instead of starving them to death for 2 weeks so they're basically dying as they stagger to the finish line... well, it's your grow, but you're giving up a lot of yield. I'm just finishing up a run right now, and added easily 35% (or more) in bud mass to some of my plants over the last 2 weeks. If I'd spent that time flushing 'em instead, well.... it would have turned into a pretty mediocre yield, instead of the really good one that I'm expecting.
But, what you're doing makes you happy, so that's all that counts. Not to get into a dick-measuring contest, but those top buds wouldn't even be decent side buds on the ones that I'm still feeding right up until the day I cut them. The calyxes haven't even begun to swell in yet. I'm not criticizing you; I'm just saying, you could definitely get a better outcome if you did things a little differently.
Oh, and this...
I've been debating over 12 and 13 week flower, I see some say the 13th week is for ripening and I see other places that buds could begin deteriorating.
First off, who are these "some" and "other places" that you're getting your advice from? And why do you value their advice more than the advice you're getting here?
And second, what do those general pieces of advice have to do with your specific plants? Did these "other places" see your plants? No? Then how could they know what week your plants should come down? Finishing times can range very widely from one strain to another, and even from one phenotype to another. I'm doing a grow from seed right now, and I cut one plant last week, another today, will cut a couple more sometime before the end of the week, and most of the rest sometime next week. That's a variance of around 2.5 to 3 weeks, because I'm not going by what I read on "some place" - I'm going by what my plants actually look like.
You really need to learn how to read your own plants, rather than some stranger's website. It doesn't matter what some dumb stoner wrote on some blog if your trichomes are still clear, and your buds are still sprouting white pistils and haven't even filled out yet. Some grow sites do offer a lot of valuable advice, but it doesn't do you any good unless you know how that advice specifically applies to your own plants. Buds don't necessarily "begin deteriorating" at 13 weeks - at 13 weeks some of them aren't even close to done yet, and some of them are already a month past optimum harvest time. The trick to growing is knowing how to tell which is which by looking at them. That's the sort of thing people here seem to be trying to tell you, but it seems to be making you angry. I think you're getting angry at the wrong website.
Best wishes to you, though. Hope it smokes up nice!
I've been debating over 12 and 13 week flower, I see some say the 13th week is for ripening and I see other places that buds could begin deteriorating. So I am flushing them today for several days and giving them 3 days in the dark before I harvest them on April 3rd.
Defoliating + flushing = total newb
Doc