I don't worry about the color of the husk as much as the color of the nuts. I look inside the husk and if the nuts are brown, I pick them. If they look white, I wait. I picked about 80% of mine on Sept. 7th, and almost all of the rest on Sept. 13th. I'm still waiting on 2 bushes. Most of the husks were greenish-brown when I picked them but some were mostly green.

pick one.. open it.. and taste it ...

care to wonder how many years.. it took me to figure that out.. lol ... wwwaayyyy tooo many .. lol

ken

yes pick now. I picked mine like a week ago. Better too early than one day too late. Those rodents are bad news. I picked all mine EARLIER last year and most still germinated.
I do find that you should let the nuts dry out a bit AFTER picking to make them taste better.

Thanks for the advice. I picked about 75% of them today--all but the ones with very pale nuts. I guess it was the cool, wet summer because last year the nut clusters were brown, dry, and fell off the tree into my hand!
We sure don't have the huge crop that we had last year, but it should be enough to keep hubby in his favorite hazelnut cookies all winter!