how to grow hazelnuts

This plant prefers stony/poor ground if you give it too rich a soil it will have bushy growth with few nuts
Can be slow to establish but will then take off - takes a couple of years. I replanted mine in poor soil, never fed it and it flourished. Plenty of nuts and we only had one tree.

A two year old plant is too young to nut. As Drc says, it can take a few seasons before they start. My gran had a single tree (I think it was Kentish Cob) and it was prolific.

Male catkins in spring, pre-formed towards the end of the previous season on the shoot tips will show you when it's going to fruit/nut. The female flowers only emerge as tiny red filaments/styles out of the expanding buds in spring and can be hard to see.

Our Hazel hedge (which is never cut) has been in for about 10 years, never had a nut on any of them either. Now both the twisted and the golden one do produce nuts, but they did take a fair number of years to do it.
Reading up on Hazel as we want a fruiting one, it seems that there are some varieties which do not like a cold spot, expecially the most prolific one, Butler.

Mine is a kentish Cob Nut never grown very big as trees go, never touch it but I suppose its sheltered? I got the imformation on how to grow mine from the Kentish Cob Nuts association which I think was relatively new at that time.

Thanks for all your replys. Can you tell me if they can grow in continers or are they best in the ground.

Afraid I dont know that Biddy, but they get to 15ft by 10ft across - need to protect from too much wind to get the nuts