Excerpt from “Nature in Vegas: Cultivating the Brand”: Even though most people would assume the gigantic squash on display were too enormous to be real, I live in a small town in Connecticut where local farmers showcase pumpkins at the town fair that would put up a good contest against these Nevada grandes.  The caretaker at the Bellagio insisted that the thousand-pounders were indeed the real thing, but here’s the catch — in the context of Vegas and under six-foot long glass leaves suspended from the ceiling, it is difficult to believe in super-sized vegetables.