My outdoor grow...starting to flower and I have a few ???'s

I have helped my sister the last two summers with her grows and this summer I am doing one of my own. I started off with about 12 seeds and only 3 sprouted. After about 2 weeks and no more came up, I decided that wasn't enough for me so I germinated 10 more seeds and all of them but 1 sprouted. So I am left with 3 plants that are a month older than the others. The older plant that I was asking about earlier, with things that LOOKED like calyxes with no white hairs?? Well, IT HAS HAIRS NOW! wooo!

But anyway, haha, I was wondering how much the maturity of the plant affects when it flowers. I know there are strains that autoflower, but I doubt I have any of those...it's just bag seed of some of my best smoke. The 3 plants are way bigger (obviously, they're a month older!), they are so big I'm real worried that they're going to get OUT OF CONTROL when they flower (I've topped them, one of them I topped more than once and it's still the tallest!! Which also happens to be the one with white hairs!!) The others would produce a little bud, but not as much as I want. Does the light cycle completely dictate when the plant flowers? If this is true and they're all outside then wouldn't my little plants be starting to flower soon? Or will they have to mature a little bit before they flower?

Another question is when does the "8 weeks of flowering" start? When the first white hairs appear or when you see buds forming? I plan on harvesting according to the trichomes anyway, so I'm not going to use the 8 weeks as an exact harvest date but I am just trying to get a basic timeframe of when I will be harvesting!!

Oh, and on the plant that is showing hairs...when should I flush it and then start using my Bloom Booster??

Thanks for all the help!! Never would be able to do it without cann.com!!!