general questions

im growing one plant for my own personal use and had a few questions. recently, i moved the plant out of the starter cup into a big painters bucket (one you can buy at a home depot).it's seed-grown in soil. i've been using a mixture of sunlight and regular home-lighting (if it's raining outside). after reading around on this site, i'm going to go out and buy a flourescent bulb so it grows better.

anyways, how do i tell if it's male/female (the plant is around a month old or so)? and when do i try to get it to start budding/how? i've read about the light cycles and until now i had no idea about it. i pretty much have been giving it 8+hours of light everyday and watering it once a day. it looks healthy and is growing fast. i don't have pics (because i don't have a camera) but might be able to get them with a cell phone at some point in the future. hmm that's about it for now. any help is appreciated!

You should by some CFL's there cheap and pretty good.. by a 32w or 42w I forget it lets out like 3000 lumens... only 8 bucks each... by a few of thoes and by a light reflector type thing for 4 bucks... next to lights in home depot. by light spliters. and you should be ok
your plants might be showing signs of what their sex is... Look at the fourth node of your plant thats where your 4th set of leaves are comming out and look between the stem and the leafs stem... If you have good Eyes you should be able to see this Male Female marijuana - Google Image Search
... If your plants are preflowering... use 12/12 sycle

18 hours of light per day with 6 hours of darkness.

If it's raining stick it under some CFL's.

You can tell it's female by the white hairs it produces (Pistils) or by the pollen sacks (Males)

For flowering the general rule is start 12/12 cycle when the plant is around 12" in height.

Alot of your questions can be answered in the GrowFAQ (https://www.rollitup.org/view.php?pg=faq)

man didn't he say he was trying to flower lready? I thought thats why he had the bags on 12 hours... note to self... dont give advise when blazed out of my mind, and cant remeber the question im ansering and some other shit...

well after looking at it, i'm pretty sure it's a female plant. not entirely though. guess i will have to wait and see. thanks for the advice. will switching lights shock the plant? there are five or six sets of leaves (the bottom leaves are developing and the top 3 sets have five points each) is it growing at an alright rate? (it's about 10-11 inches). thanks for the help!

Yea it sounds like there at where they should be... what are you growing?
I'v put some plants through some pretty wacky light times... and I mean really like weird times... look O.K. to me... But I'm sure there are many who would say otherwise.

i'm not growing anything special, really. just something to put into dutches. i planted a few seeds from a bag i had just hoping it would sprout and it did.