@rebeccaryan
I have nothing to add to your post. I just know that you don't want the male pods to open and pollinate the females. If you do. You get a lot of seeds in your buds. I think that is what they call it..
It is easy to tell the males from the female plants. You can see the males before the female plants are ready.
So yes. You have some time.
But, I am not the expert. I just know what I have been told.
Francis
Hahahaha! Thanks. Well Francis, have you ever been told if male pollen sacs look like what my plants look like right now?
Most of the growers (who have already responded) also think I should wait about a week's time and that the males will be unmistakably male before the females are ready.
It just makes me nervous to have even the potential of getting pollen anywhere. In my first garden, once we could identify for sure that we had a male, we moved that plant outside with another female plant. Inadvertantly, when the male started pollinating we either carried that pollen with us to the other plants every time or, it had already pollinated all of them before we decided to move it.
I really want to deal with any males as soon as I can, this time around.