[Tenhens]

While on a visit to our usual garden centre for strawberry plants and MPC we came across round courgette plants, have googled and apparently they're something that the Dutch have grown. Also they grow to about the size of a cricket ball.  They were £2 a plant.

[Casey76]

There are several varieties out there. "Rond de Nice" is a pale green round courgette, and normally harvested at tennis ball size; "one ball" and "eight ball" are yellow and deep green, and are normally harvested a bit smaller.

You should be able to buy a packet of Rond de Nice for less than £2

[Tenhens]

Mrs tenhens is planning to go back and get a plant or two and try collecting the seeds in due course OR get some seeds and nurse them along, we shall see.

[mumofstig]

Try Tondo Scuro Di Piacenza 
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Vegetable-Courgette-Tondo-Scuro-Di-Piacenza-8-Seed-/331339376218?hash=item4d255da65a:g:aooAAOxyZwpSWDG-

[surbie100]

Mrs tenhens is planning to go back and get a plant or two and try collecting the seeds in due course OR get some seeds and nurse them along, we shall see.

Bear in mind you'll need to isolate (bag or tape) the male & female flowers and hand pollinate to avoid growing a pumgette next year.  If you're saving seed, 2-3 plants is better, just to make sure you're more likely to have a male flower opening at the same time as the female flower, plus pollen from more than one plant helps keep plant vigour going.
Also a) they take nearly all season to mature and b) once you let one plant set seed it pretty much gives up producing anything else.

Apologies if this is old hat. 

[Mr Dog]

I've grown di Nizza the last 4 years - 15 seeds for 19p from Lidl in 2012! I usually harvest them when about 4-5" across and use in soups and curries, but have also left (not always deliberately) them to grow into marrows.

[Snoop]

I grew round courgettes a couple of years back. Seeds work out much cheaper than the prices of the plants you've been looking at, Tenhens. And the plants grow really quite quickly, so you wouldn't be that much further behind if you started off some seeds now(ish).

Following on from Mr Dog's comments on size at harvest, I'd definitely err or the small size rather than larger. The texture was a bit mushier and the taste a bit 'sweatier' (sorry, can't think of any better word) when they got beyond the size Mr Dog mentions.

[Yorkie]

And the plants grow really quite quickly, so you wouldn't be that much further behind if you started off some seeds now(ish).

I'm not sure whether you have a greenhouse to start them off in, tenhens, but if you don't (i.e. are growing them on a windowsill), your last frost date is likely to be towards the end of May so it's definitely not too late to be starting them off.  You don't want them getting all leggy indoors.

[Mr Dog]

..... so you wouldn't be that much further behind if you started off some seeds now(ish).....

Definitely not. I'm not a great deal further north than Tenhens and I don't normally sow my courgettes till early May.

[Tenhens]

Yorkie , we do have a greenhouse , Mrs Tenhens is 'shopping' tomorrow and will hopefully come back with some seeds.

We had a good crop two years ago ,but last year was very poor. Hopefully this will be a better year.