New Grower Have a few Questions...Bear with anewbie plz

I am growing 3 plants in pots on my balcony that I started back in the beginning of april. I live on the East coast of the US. I have watered and fetilized them and they are about 2- 2 1/2 ft tall, not too bushy, but not too lean either. I am positive they are female, as they have white sprouts coming out these past 2 weeks.

My question is, with outdoor, relitively natural growing, for the area I live in, what stage are my plants at? Are they flowering? And when they do flower, how long does that last? Is the flowering the actual formation of the bud?

Sorry to be so ignorant, but after years of smoking, I finally decided to try and grow my own

Thanx


let me also ask....when will they be ready to harvest being grown this way? I am not interested in forcing them to mature. I know it is by the end of september for where I live that the natural light reaches 12/12...is that when it happens?

Here's something:

http://greenmanspage.com/guides/outdoorcult.html

Or this also www.overgrow.com
Borders and Barnes-Noble are packed with great cannabis books in the gardening section.

do you have pictyres, cuz that would help. and overgrow is a great website and if you look on ebay or half.com theres alot of cannabis cultivating books.