Coming up tonight on Colorado.

Stories from studio 12.

Do your kids play Roblox?

There are new ways the online gaming platform is trying to keep your kids safe.

We'll tell you how.

In our one on one interview with Roblox, Vice President of Public Policy and Frannie Matthews sits down with Isaac Slade, former lead singer of The Fray, to talk about the business of music, his solo career and hi nonprofit, Take Note Colorado.

Our next stop on our civics B road trip takes us to Carbondale, where middle school students compete for top honors i civic engagement and government.

Then we hear from our gardening expert, Jungle Judy, on ways we can protect our gardens from summer heat, hail and pests.

That's all coming up right now on Colorado.

Stories from studio 12, from the Five Points Media Center in the heart of Denver, Colorado.

This is studio 12.

Hi, I'm Bob Kainani, and I'm Brian Hare.

Thank you for joining us fo Colorado Stories from studio 12.

Parenting has never been simple.

And raising kids in a digital world adds a whole new layer of questions, from scree time to online chat to privacy.

It can be tough to keep on top of all the apps, games and technology that our kids are using every day.

One of the biggest gaming platforms is Roblox.

It recently rolled out new safety tools including facial age estimation and expanded parental controls to better protect its young users.

But these new changes have raised questions for some parents.

On this week's The Family Beat.

Erica McLarty sits down with Roblox Vice President of public policy to get some answer to some of the biggest questions families are asking.

If you're a parent I'm sure you've heard of Roblox.

My kids play it.

They love to explor all of these different creative world and connect with their friends.

I even have my own username that at any given time I could just pop i and see what worlds they're in.

Today I'm sitting down with Roblox is vice President of public Policy to talk about the platform's latest safety features.

What parents need to know about privacy and age verification, and how Roblox is working to protect kids.

As technology continues to change.

Nikki.

Thank you for joining us, and I would love to just jump right in about these expanded parental controls.

Tell us what's going on with that.

Well, great.

And we'd love to hear that you're using Roblox.

But I know a lot of parents have questions.

So happy to have this time with you.

We have announced two new types of accounts on Roblox that really are designe to grow with children that are aligned with their ages.

The first is Roblox kids, and that's for ages 5 to 8.

And I kind of think of this one as the bike with the training wheels.

So they're getting some skills, but there's still a lot of protections there.

And then we are also announcing Roblox Select, which is for the next age group up.

It's for the 9 to 15 year olds.

This is when the training wheels come off.

But we kno that parents are still involved.

There are still protections.

They're still getting used to the road.

And for example, with Roblox kids, for those little ones, chat is off by default.

That means when they log in, they would do an age check.

And once we know that they're in that bucket, certain aspects are just they won't be able to chat without, you know, the default is off unless parent wants them to be able to.

A lot of the moms, you know, in my friendship group here are just so worried.

I'm sure you hear this a lot about uploading a picture of their child.

What would you say to that?

Let me start with how Age Check works on Roblox, because I think it's actually can be comforting to parents when they know more about it.

So each check, which is actually a feature that we rolled out months ago, specifically for chat, is a simple tool, and it's basically a video selfie.

So the way that it works is, the tool goes on, a child will turn his or her head to the right and to the left, and it will determine within a high degree of accuracy what their age bucket is, which will then let us know, are they eligible to chat?

And if they are, we want to make sure that they're only ever chatting with people in a similar age group.

So it's not the case that people can hold up a photo from a magazine of somebody else.

Nor is it the case that, you know, parents have to give over a photo.

It's a video selfie taken i the moment the data is deleted.

And, you know, it's it's really for the purposes of providing a safer environment.

I'm kind of surprised.

I don't know, maybe I'm cool, mom, I don't know but I get kind of surprised that a lot of people actuall don't even know that Roblox is a lot of games within a game.

They think it's one game.

So how do you explain?

This is such a great point to for for parents in particular.

We know the parents have dozens of apps that they're trying to track.

And we're also really overwhelmed.

I'm a mom, I have two kids.

It's really overwhelming.

And I work in technology.

I think that parents need to understand that, Roblox isn't one game.

To your point, they should think of it as a platform.

And instead of like you know, YouTube's a platform and you can watch lots of videos on YouTube, on Roblox, you can play lots of different game or have different experiences.

Our job and what we think our responsibility is, is to ensure that the content that people are interacting with, particularly kids, is appropriate for their age and that the tools that they're getting access to, like communication features, are also appropriate for their age as well.

What drove these new safety changes?

Roblox is a 20 year old company.

Some people don't realize it's been there that long, and the platform has grown so much over time.

And we know that there are children as young as five using Roblox, and it's exciting.

They're learning how to code on Roblox or they're, interacting with friends.

And there are also adults who use Roblox.

As we've grown, it's becom clear that we want to provide, a community where there are walled gardens for kids, where they can interact, but with people of a similar ag and that the, the experiences, the games they're playing also feel like a good fit if a parent isn't able to, you know, go in and change one setting, not because they don't care, but they're overwhelmed or they have a lot to manag that there are certain defaults in place and certain protections that are baked right in.

Similarly if a parent says, you know what, there is a game that Roblox doesn't think is appropriate for my 14 year old, but my 16 year old's playing it and I want them to be able to play together.

Parents can make that decisio easily by logging into the app.

All they have to do is connect their accoun to their child's Roblox account, and then they have a lo of different parental controls that they can use to manage everything, from screen time limits to spending controls.

And now, with these updates, parents have the ability to manage those protections not just until kids are 13, which was the kind of the threshold previously, but now through age is 15.

So what metric to make sure that these new safet features are actually working?

There are a few that that come to mind.

One is we want to make sure that the tools that we're using are accurate.

So, with that age check tool that you and I were talking about that video selfie, we know that it's accurate within 1.4 years of a child's age.

So, you know, if it looks at a child, and the child is seven year old, it might say the child is as old as eight, or it might say as young as, five, but it's generally very, very accurate.

We also want to make sure that people are using the age check tool.

So as I mentioned before, for people that don't age check at all, they will not be able to communicate on Roblox and they will have access to a core set of games and experiences that are kind of appropriate for everybody.

What we want are for as many people as possible, to be age checking, so that we can put them in the right buckets.

Do you recommend I do it?

I mean, I'm in my 40s.

Do I do the age check when I log in to play with my kids?

I think as a mom it's great to do the age check.

As much as I would love any tool to tell m that I look younger than I do, I think parents will be comforted by the fact that it is actually very accurate.

And my kids did it and they were like, oh, it thinks I'm this.

And I'm like, no, you are.

So I think, I think it's comforting for parents.

Also, if you are a parent, and you do the age check that in your Roblox account is set up even if you don't play.

It does give you that door into just being able to manage the account and interac with your kids if you want to.

Yeah.

I'm curious, why was facial age estimation picked over less invasive methods?

Well, I should also note if if people want to, they can upload an ID, a government issued ID, and s that is an option for people to sometimes what's hard about government issued IDs is that kids just don't have them.

Some kids might have a passport.

Many don't.

And so we think that, you know, we live in a world where we now use our faces to unlock our phones right?

Like we use faces as a secure method, for authentication in many different areas.

And the world is different than it was 20 years ago, or we have better technology is more robust technologies.

And so we think of video selfie, especially when the data isn't saved, it's hard deleted.

And it does a check.

We think that that's a really, noninvasive and easy way to get people part of the safety process when chatting.

Is there a wa that parents can say, okay, yes, I want them to chat with their brother and sister and cousin, but I don't want them chatting with anybody else.

Can they like person by person, say yes or no?

Access to direct chat is something that we are rolling out with this change, so that parents can control who their kids are directly chatting with.

So some of our new parental controls will extend all the way from, you know, from when a child is small until the age of 15.

So I can do all across the board screen time limits on my kids technology.

But does road block have something just within that?

The Roblox app that says you've been on here for too long, you're kicked out.

Yes, there is a control within Roblox itself.

It's not new.

It's something we've always offered where parents can decide how much screen time is the right amoun and every family is different.

Any, Roblox games you recommend playing with your family?

Because I play with my kids.

It's funny.

I have two boys.

One is 14, one is 16.

And I mentioned that's only because I find it funny.

You wouldn't typically think of 14 and 16 year olds as like growing gardens, but my boys have, discovered, grow a garden.

It's a great game that teaches kids how to care for plant and take care of their gardens.

But there are s many different games on Roblox.

If a parent watching this interview only remembers one thing, what' the single most important step they should be taking to hel keep their child safe on Roblox?

I would just let parents know if they have questions about safety on Roblox.

They can always go to roblox.com/safety center, and that kind of kicks off.

You know, it's a starting point for all of the questions they might have.

But another thing that parents can do is actually talk to their kids and just sit down with them.

You don't have to play to sit with your child for 5 or 10 minutes and say, show me how this works.

Or like, what do you like about it?

Or is there anything that's difficult for you?

You just get a sense for what their world is like online, and it opens up that conversation.

And you don't need to have tech skills.

That's just that kind o parenting that we do every day.

Another thing that I don't thin a lot of parents know is that, you know, these games that are inside of it, who creates them?

Anyone are allowed to create a game?

How is that like process of I've created this game and I want it to be available to the world.

All of the developer that have games in those buckets go through a check on our side to make sure that that the developers accounts are secure, that we know who they are.

That we have an understanding of the kind of content that's in those games.

So Roblox itself, you can think of it as an imagination of, you know, kind of a blank canvas for imagination.

But in terms of what kids have access to in these protected environments, all of that content has to be vetted so that we know that it's going to be a good experience for them.

Thank you so much, Nikki.

Thanks for the time.

Great to meet you.

Thanks.

Thanks for listening and being a part of the conversation today for this video and all other videos in the family be you can go to PBS 12.org or our YouTube channel.

For Isaac Slade, the journey didn't end when he stepped away from the fray.

Today he's writing new music, performing an intimate venues and discovering that some of the most meaningful connections happen in smaller rooms.

Ibotta is partnering with Take Note Colorado for a special outdoor concert at its downtown Denver headquarters.

The organization is working to make music education available to every young person in Colorado who wants the opportunity to learn.

Randy Matthews sat down with Isaac to talk about his evolution as an artist, why he's learned to trust his own creative voice, and how that journey led him to help advance.

Take note Colorado's mission.

It's a conversation about creativity, purpose, and the power of music to change lives.

Well, Isaac Slay, thank you so muc for sitting down with us today.

We are at Ibotta and you're going to do a concert here.

And, I think many of us i Colorado, just adore your music, you know, the whole enchilada after all, right?

Yeah, I like that answer.

Well, I think it's true, you know?

So, I, I just want to, know what everybody I think wants to know i what's Isaac Sleigh doing now?

Oh, man.

A lot of sack lunches, a lot of sweatpants, a lot of full sack lunches.

At the end of the day, because my kids don't eat probably 70% of what I make them.

I've been living up, just outside of Seattl on a weird little hippie island.

That reminds me a lot of Boulder, actually, from bash on and, Yeah, just raising my babies and, my partner and I are, writing a bunch of music, trying some new music, and I have a, partner in crime, too, in the studio that, you know just been cranking away like a 9 to 5 banker's hours every every week, just just cranking on new music covers.

And so you have a studio at your house?

It's a little cabin I rent.

Yeah.

On the island.

Yeah.

We put all my gear, and so yeah, it's been making music and living life deep into my middle age.

So I'm always fascinated by creative process, and there's a lot of work that goes into it and it changes over time.

So when you look at the decades that you've worked in the music industry, how long have you looked at creativity differently?

Well, I still feel like it's the Marvel comic.

I like going in and finding this lightning bal and then like shooting it out, and all the good stuff I've ever made, sort of has the inception of that, like some kind of weird, sacred, divine creative act.

And the you turned it into a 3.5 minute verse chorus, verse, chorus bridge, chorus, chorus song for, musi video or a, you know, a website landing page or whatever it is that we're creating.

So I feel like that firs part has always been the same.

And if I ever make anything that's not very good, I sort of like, look back and realize I've never had that kind of first inception moment.

I was just like, I'm going to write somethin that's going to make me popular.

Well, people like to listen to, and those are never good, or they're fine, they're just not great.

But I think maybe the part that's changed has been learning to trust myself more.

Trust my voice, trust my kind of inner voice.

Trust tha if something resonates with me, hopefully it'll resonate with somebody else, too.

I think at Seinfeld, Seinfeld writes a joke a day and it crosses it off on the on the calendar.

That's cool.

I, I, I believe, it is work, but it's like showing up in a fiel with a lightning rod every day.

That's the real work.

When you show up and start writing.

The first draft is always bad.

The second draft is usually a little less bad, and by that fifth, sixth seventh, you know, 20th draft, it's like the electricity is coming from somewhere.

And, I feel like some energy out in the universe is doing the real lifting.

And we're all just, like, tuning in the form and, oh, there's my song.

Got it.

Yeah, I get that.

Yeah, yeah.

So, so in all of this, you've made a big pivot.

Yeah.

And so, you know, I look at this and I think of these amazing times that you have that, you know, you get into small venues as an audience, you get into small venues and the impact that has and I think, particularl coming out of the industrial age in the United States, we think, okay, here's a great idea and we scale it.

And so, is is scaling really I mean, how do you feel about tha when you mix it with creativity?

If we're the band and that's the stage?

I used to think we had to be really different depending on what the crowd was.

If it's a room of 30 people or 300 or 3000 or 30,000, you have to sort of be different people.

And I, after whatever thousand shows I've played, I think it's the same person just slightly turned up in volume.

And that actuall is kind of a calming thing to me because I can just kind of be myself a little louder or a little quiete or really quiet or really loud.

So with that mentality, I just did this solo tour, back in March and April, and it was just like turning myself way down.

I wasn't running around and jumping on the edge of the stage and into the crowd.

I was I was just kind of having like, a lot of motion inward, and, letting that kind of intimate exchange be the drama, let that be the action.

Then it was cool.

It was it was a totally different thing for me playing these big songs that we wrote for arenas, a lot slower and a lot more vibey and a lot like more man and piano and Spotlight.

But the songs were sort of written in that living room feel, and then we sped them way up and put drums on them and guitars.

So in a way it felt like I was, visiting like my old high school, like, oh, I remember you found me at, you know, 76 BPMs like this is cozy and, like, visiting my grandma or something.

And it was so wholesome and, powerful for me.

Do you connect differently with the audiences when it's smaller?

Big time?

Yeah.

I mean, it's it's like, you know, being in this room.

There's 14 people in here.

If I started singing right now, like, it's awkward, it's it's weird.

Especially for, like, 20s, I was like, oh my God, he's singing don't look at me, don't look at me.

And I'm like, don't look at him, don't look at him.

But in that intimacy, once everybody kind of calms down, it's like this.

It makes the room just kind o swirl in this strange sort of.

We're all human, we're all freaked out.

We're all stoked abou something, and we're hoping it works.

Let's talk about Take Note.

That has been a passion project for you.

Tell us about what take take note is.

Yeah.

What started with, the, Senato Hickenlooper's, Governor Raine, asking me to come to a dinner and he had, really prominent Democrat and a really prominent Republican on either side of hi saying they wanted me to lead, project that would make Colorado the first state where all 1 million kids could learn to play music if they wanted to.

And it was a massive projec that put ten years on the clock.

I was ten years younger tha I am now or nine years younger.

It was nine years ago.

And, so I jumped in and started it with him and it a couple key foundations and a bunch of really smart board members, all Denver local Colorado Boulder people and, some people on the Western Slope.

And we just started chasing what access to instruments and instruction would look like, in a state our size that has, you know, condensed urban areas and sprawling rural, sub suburban and then, you know, broad rural.

And it's been a challenge.

There's a lot of places we go in with, like a truck full of saxophones and they're like, we don't know what to do with this.

You know, we don't have enough money for lunches on Fridays.

We don't have money for schools on Fridays.

We barely have a football team We don't have enough teachers.

So, you know, we're it's been a crash course in sort of taking the temperature of the state across all sectors, you know, education, mental health, social cultural, sport has been crazy.

But we're close.

We're getting really, really close.

And we have one more year left, about a year left, and we're about 90% there.

So I think I think it's right on trac to sail across the finish line.

Thank you for the work.

Yeah it's awesome.

So we'll we'll keep trac on what you're doing with that.

We thank you for that.

And we thank you for coming in to Colorado and doing this concert.

Yeah.

Thanks for having me back to.

So Brian, it is so great to be back.

We were here.

Oh gosh.

I think it was October of last year and you had just moved into this space and you were bringing people into the space, big commitment at 16th and market.

So tell us about bringing people back in the office where you are now and what it means to be downtown.

Yeah.

You know, we had our grand opening, as you say, and now we have 600 employees coming in to the office.

We're right in the heart of lower downtow at 16th and and and at market.

And we're starting to see how we're part of sort of the vibrant resurgence of downtown Denver.

Extremely excited to be here and to have made a ten year commitment to this place.

That's awesome.

And I've worked downtown for a number of years.

And it it is there is a vibrancy that is awesome.

And.

All right.

So let' talk a little bit about Isaac.

How did you meet Isaac?

I've been a huge fan o Isaac's music for a long time, and he came to play at a benefit for my children's school, and I excitedly signed up to go watch him.

And I was just blown away how he could perform all of the music that he wrote for the free by himself on music, you know, and a pian on the pianist amateur pianist.

Just watching somebody and accompanying himself so incredibly skillfully was really inspiring and I got a chance to say hello and get to know him.

And his manager is a friend of mine.

And so we had this idea that was inspired by the original music video for Where the Streets Have No Name by YouTube, which was filmed on top of a rooftop his house Angeles, and I wanted some kind of a rooftop vibe inside of our office as well, almost like a pop up concert.

And I thought, wow, you know, Isaac would be perfect because of his connection to our community.

So while I was out in Seattle, which is where he lives, I arranged to meet with them and I pitched him on this idea.

And it turned out he has some new music that he's, popular.

You know, he's getting out there and popularizing and the perfect opportunit for him to to perform in public.

So we're thrilled, you know, it's interesting you've seen him make a pivot.

What do you think about that?

What you see, I think it takes a lot of courage to continue to put out new material when you have such a beloved canon of material and some of these new songs are just terrific, and I'm so glad he' playing a mix of both of them.

What he puts out on online is so good that people have been clamoring for him to put out an album, and he's now going to do that in the world, is goin to get to hear his music again.

That's awesome.

That's awesome.

Well, I know your, tea members are going to be thrilled to have this concert today.

And so.

Right.

I thank you for being a great community leader.

And, it's fun to see what's happening.

Thanks so much for having me.

Funding for the Business of Colorado on PBS 12 is provided in part by Collegiate Peaks Bank.

I bought up and from the generous support of viewers like you.

Thank you.

Take note Colorado brings together schools, community organizations, musicians and donor to help expand access to music education across the state.

To learn more about Take Not Colorado and its mission, visit Take Note colorado.org.

Think you know your civics middle school students from across Colorado are putting their knowledge to the test, from the Constitution to today's headlines.

These students have been studying to think quickly and to show what they know about government history and the responsibilities of active citizenship.

The competition is tough the questions are challenging, and a spot in the state championship is up for grabs.

Tonight we're taking you inside Carbondale civics B for a front ro seat to the action.

Take a look.

Welcome, everybody.

I'm Ryan, honey I will be your MC this evening.

So in a moment, we're going to bring out our finalists for the first ever grader, Roaring Fork Valley civics B. Each of these students has identified an opportunit in their community to improve.

So please welcome to the stage a whole bunch of kids who are smarter than me.

Give it up for them as they come on out.

Hey, for sure thing gets an opportunity.

Whether they want to look at that as a career or also just be engaged down the road.

Maybe it's, you know, helping with, voter registration or things like that.

I think it just opens a door of opportunit and also showing that there is, you know, really fun activities such as this happening in their communities that maybe they would not have known about before.

You know, there's competitions on the Front Range, there's competitions for there on the Western Slope in Grand Junction.

But for us to be centrally located right her really provides that opportunity for more student to participate and be engaged.

The Civic Si is a powerful platform to amplify the voices of young people.

Getting young people engaged in civics and civics education early is wonderful.

Because it gives them a taste of, opportunity and communit and engagement moving forward.

I also think it gives opportunity for young people to see that they are changemaker ers, and that they can have a positive and important impact in their communities, their schools, where they live and beyond.

So to say, like you're a young person, you can do something now.

You don't have to wait till you're older.

And a how can we foster that, tha knowledge, that understanding.

And then the opportunity to apply that knowledge in a relevant and meaningful way.

It being around middle school age, it's such a fundamental, age group where you are like a sponge and you're learnin and you're growing and maturing.

So yes, definitely, I think for the professional development, it's going to be a win for everybody, even you know, for for the community.

Okay.

That concludes round one.

Give it up for these kids.

Students spend many, many, many hours writing essentially for themselves or for their teacher.

And this event gives them an opportunity to write fo an audience that really is going to listen deepl and often create an opportunity for their, their voic to, to actually, affect change.

The wa I propose this to students was we brainstormed a bunch of challenges and problems or opportunities in our town.

That's what to say to apply for the civic space was and it was awesom to see what kids came up with.

You know, there were things like mental health or, conservation.

And, that's what this project is, is learning how to take actio in your community when you see, you know, being informed enough to see issues and then, being brave enough and creative enough to try to think of solutions.

Okay that concludes our second round.

Deep breath, kids.

Good job.

Give him a round of applause, everybody.

Yay!

I taught me how I can, be a part of make a body instead of just staying back.

I wrote about helping teachers out and appreciating the because it is kind of expensive to live out here, and not a lot of new teachers from the states come around to here, and they can't really affor the fees, but like pick up here.

Okay, before we get to round three, you guys can just sit there for a minute because I want to thank the schools and the teachers who helped make, these to help these students to get here.

Do it.

Absolutely do it.

Don't be afraid.

I have to say, I have been inspired by seeing young people take the microphone, take center stage, try something new, do something that might scare you and learn from it.

You don't have to be perfect.

Just do it.

Take the risk.

It is worth it.

Start talking to people in your community.

Talk to your parents.

Talk to your teachers.

Find out what the issues are that are important to people around you and find the issues.

That's that is really important to yourself.

And use that as the jumping off point for, for entering the competition.

Now, the way this works is the students will offer three sentences to review the theme of their essay, the essay they wrote to participate in tonight's competition.

Our judges will then hav three minutes to ask questions, and by the end of the evening, three contestants will be heading to Denver for the state civics be in July.

It's definitely important.

I mean government, it's it's defines how we live in America.

So it's a win the week off like right.

My mom and my dad definitely helped me.

Stay on schedul a little studying and you know, they drove over her and just encouraged me to enter.

No matter what the results of this, each one of these kids is a winner.

You guys give me hope for the future of America.

So please come back up on the stage.

Just try it.

It's.

It's not bad.

If you lose.

It's exciting if you win.

And even if you don't get in, there's always you three years of it, of trying.

So just keep trying and in first place, dude, congratulations.

I'm really, really happy.

I'm so excited.

I worked really hard for this.

We're so excited.

We're so proud of him.

He worked really hard and he's just a really inspiring young guy.

It was good to see, some of these things from Fresh Eyes as a parent and see the wonder and excitement in our kids in order to reach examine our interaction with our civic life.

The civic spirit for me as a parent, was really opening a door into hope and optimism about the future that I hav been very hungry for recently.

It's a really good opportunity to learn things about the way our government works, which I think is just super important.

I mean, it really has taught me a lot of important skills about determination, not giving up study skills as well.

And I just most of all, determination is what I would say.

Support for the civic space, brought to you in part by the Daniels Fund in commemoration of America's 250th and Colorado's 150th anniversary.

Carbondale is just one stop on the road to the state championship for these middle schoolers.

The Colorado State Civics Bee is on July 24th at the Cable Center on the Du campus, and that's where one student will earn bragging rights as Colorado's top young civics champion, Colorado Inside Out has been on the air for more than three decades, and the team that gathers each week gets to know each other well and feel connected like a family.

So the death of journalist Lynn Bartels is felt deeply among all of us in the PBS 12 community.

Kyle Dyer and her team of insiders have a lot to say about Lynn's impact on journalism, politics, and communities throughout Colorado.

Hi, Bossy and Ryan.

Longtime journalism.

Bartels was a panelist on Colorado Inside Out from 2007 through 2015.

That's when she left reporting to work for the state, and when she retired she returned as a special guest panelists through 2022 and since her death, journalists politicians, community leaders, you name it have expressed their appreciation and respect for Lynn.

So when we came together for our most recent episode of Colorado Inside Out, we shared what we all appreciated most about Lynn as well.

Here's a lesson.

Our state, and more specifically our journalistic and political community here in Colorado, has lost someone very special.

Lynn Bartels Lynn was a reporter for the Rocky Mountain News and The Denver Post.

She served as communications director for the Secretary of State's office, and was also a regular at this table in Colorado.

Inside out for many years.

Lynn was on this sho before I joined, and also before you as well, Elena.

But I understand she kind of took you under her wing a bit when you moved to Colorado to work with Axios Denver.

She did, she did.

It was I moved in 2019 to Denver.

I was at Colorado politics, actually.

I think it was my first or second week.

She, out of the goodness of her heart, said, hey, I want to take you to a community event.

There's a lot of movers and shakers here.

It was on a weekend, so she didn't have to do this whatsoever, wasn't even a workday.

And she took me around introduced me to so many people, including John Hickenlooper, and it was jus so that I could hit the ground running, have some sources t talk to, and that that was it.

That was the kind of person Lyn was, though she cared so much, she cared so much about journalism.

And she she took pride in and mentoring, you know, the next generation.

And I'm so grateful for that memory and for other memories that I have.

But one she was a really special person.

That's awesome.

Patty.

And thoughts?

Well, I was honored to sometimes be mistaken for Lynn because so smart, such a great writer.

And I talked before ho she described covering politics.

She covered it like sport and she was the ultimate umpire.

Fair, she called it as she thought.

But you really she she knew the game and she was just a great reporter loss to all of us.

And Eric, she was a great reporter.

I love the story that Elena told, which points out not only what she was a great reporter.

She was a great person.

She was very much her own person.

She wrote her own rules in terms of how she crafted and lived her life.

The outpouring of testimonials during her illness, which was mercifully brief and now since she's passed away, is quite something.

The one that I think superseded all others.

There's a leading Republican consultan in town by name, and Kelly Maher and I did not realize the closeness between Kelly and Lynn people should go online.

Viewers should go online and read Kelly Maher's, ode or testimonial to Lynn.

I think it's available on Complete Colorado as well as other places.

It was beautifully done.

My favorite memories of Lyn are not the professional side.

It's much more the personal side.

It's the random phone call.

It's the random text with an insight, a tip, a barb, a joke.

It's all the personal touch.

Okay?

And David she was such a great journalist.

Whatever she did, she's before Colorado.

She was a city columnist for the Albuquerque Journal and very funny and cynical.

And then she came to the Rocky Mountain News in 1993, starting off on the nightshift and the crime beat.

And then from there she transitioned to politics, which was her thing she's now famous for.

But all across all that coverage and sitting around the table here before the show when we'd be chatting, she was always the same very forthright person.

She was cynical hopeful, funny, tough and fair.

And she really did have a heart of gold.

All right, all right.

Thank you for sharing, everybody.

That was just one of our fou topics on Colorado Inside Out.

You can check the whole show out on our YouTube channel, the PB passport app, or on PBS is 12.

So our website, and we are podcast too.

Now coming up this Friday, we will have reaction post-primary to all of the different races and the future direction of Colorado.

So make sure to join us this coming Friday at 8:00 right here on PBS 12.

If you've spent any time in a Colorado garden this summer, you know the weather has not exactly made things easy.

Between the heat, hail, and hungry pests, you may have found that your garden needs a little extra help to thrive.

PBS Twelve's Erica McLarty heads to Denver Urban Gardens to meet with gardenin expert and jungle Judy Elliott for simple, practical tips to help keep your plants healthy all summer long.

All right, we're here at the Horse Barn Garden with the fabulous Jungle Judy.

And today we're learning about unpredictable summer pests, all pests that include hail and heat as well.

Right?

Right.

So you're here to help us?

Hopefully.

Okay.

Yeah.

All right, let's start.

Where do we start?

I think we need to start with the soil.

The soil.

A lot of the problems that we have that, we think are really pests and diseases are caused by improper management of our soil.

So if you don't do something like enrich it with compost.

And, Erica, I think in our magic bucket there, if I could have you walk in our magic bucket.

I love a magic bucket.

And you can take my garden pruners.

And my scissor and my.

Wonderful.

Okay, then in the bottom of this bucket, can we uncover it?

We have the clu to healthy growing and keeping a lot of the pest away.

And can you please take your hands and run it?

I would love to.

This is Colorado Compost.

It's made from landscape material.

It's beautiful.

Isn't it beautiful?

Yeah.

So this is made from what a lot of people throw out towards wheat.

Yes.

So why would you throw this out?

Because maybe they don't know that they can take it.

Hey.

What?

You can compost class at Denver Urban Garden.

Oh, okay Can you tell me how to make it?

And we have places on our soil that we kno are covered with something.

Yes.

You know what that is?

No, that's a straw.

Straw.

Okay.

And the reason that we're covering the this with straw is that it keeps that soil that growing environment, cooler, up to ten degrees cooler.

Talking about gardening i the heat, it conserves moisture and it causes those roots to go down.

We're going to move over to this crop where we have some kale okay.

And I'm going to have you use one of my favorite cultivating weeding tools.

You're scaring m with that knife too.

I'm sorry.

It's a great way to I want you to just push back the straw around this, okay?

Got it.

Push it back.

You can use your hand.

You can use that.

Whatever works for you al the way around this kale plant.

What I'm going to have to do is seal the soil.

How would you describe that?

Cold.

Very moist.

Does it feel different than where you stepped?

Yes.

Very, very good.

How would you describe that dry and so depressed.

Depressed?

Depressed I love it.

This is this is how we're going to make it even happier, because we're going to feed it with some compost.

Okay.

You're going to take my quarry.

Quarry.

Great weeding tool.

An this is what you're going to do.

Just like oh okay.

Mix it into the soil, man.

You don't know.

You don't know.

We don't want to mess with the roots.

So she's opening up here in the soil.

It's going to make the roots go down more.

This is what we can do also to eliminate or get a handle on weeds.

Oh, look what we hav right here.

This was not staged.

We have a ladybug, right there on the plant.

And I know that on the kale, which is a member of th broccoli cabbage family, we have how do we feel about the ladybug?

Is it friend or a good friend?

Because it's going to go say, this is a plant in whic I went to pause and lay my eggs.

And then th lady bird larva and the adults can munch thousands of aphids.

Look at this plot over here real quickly.

I'm looking at a white butterfly.

Oh, that beautiful white butterfly.

I love it, but this is the white cabbage butterfly.

And why is she important?

I'm looking because just lik the aphids are attracted to the.

This is actually a cauliflower which has been left too long.

In the garden, you can see its florets are turning yellow and it's open.

So kale and cabbage and broccoli and brussel sprouts, all a member of that cabbage family that attract they have strong sulfur smells.

And it's coming in and saying, I can smell the sulfur.

I'm going to oh another one just came in.

So they're not a good sign.

This is no well they're they're attracted you know they were attracted to that.

Yeah.

So at the first sign of aphids on your plant, you're going to take a strong, spray of water, okay.

And just wash it directly off.

This is an example of healthy cauliflower okay.

Well, it looks great.

That one looks sad.

I look I learned I learned this is my body.

This has been left a little long.

So what we need to do to prevent this, this one's from looking like this is to keep the sun.

And I would take the outer leaves, which probably have a tie them up.

Okay.

What do you think that's doing this versus sun.

Oh gosh.

It's just blocking all this long.

And although sometimes I dance to get an A-plus.

So I love this.

So what that's doing and it's not going to hurt the leaves.

No it's not going to hit the stream okay.

You can also use like a rubber band okay.

So you're just getting the big leaves at the edges just so.

Yeah that's really cool.

Isn't that a cool.

Yeah.

Erica, I'm looking at a curl here.

Okay.

Always almost at the at.

Will you please unfurl that curl?

So for the curl, would you go a little box?

Oh, look.

Look what we got.

Yeah we've got aphids.

So once we have washed the aphids out then, Erica, will you show people how to keep those curds?

Those are called curds nice and white so they don't turn like that.

What do we need to do?

We're going to tie them up.

We are very tired.

I mean, they've been bad and and bad.

So to keep out the sun and keep that nice and white, Erica is picking up those broad leaves, either using some kitchen string or a rubber band.

She's going to keep the sun at, just like we would put sunscreen on everybody.

We want to keep the sun out of that, I love it.

I do want to look here because if we can find a caterpillar, it's dramatic.

So come on in here.

I want to find a cat.

Well, I' going to let you go on a hunt.

I know that these are probably aphids.

Here I am looking at these kind of holes in this plant, so I'm not seeing it.

But the larva of the little fluttering white cabbage butterfly, it's this green caterpillar that you need to just brush off with your hand.

What's the pest?

Right now that they're just like, help me, Judy this pest is killing my garden.

If you had asked me last year, I would have said Japanese beetles.

You could not walk in this garden and see our grapevine over there because it was skeletonized or our Grove compost site.

It was skeletonized.

There are almost no beetles this year.

I am having an incredible problem with do a lot to climate change and extreme drought and hea are grasshoppers, grasshoppers.

So grasshoppers.

We're all lookin at organic ways of managing it.

Yeah, I'd recommend that people on before things flower, take some garden knitting and put it over the plants to physically exclude the grasshoppers.

Now right here in the garden we're always concerned about hail.

And we're concerned about extreme heat.

So right behind us we had a hail scare here where we were supposed to get a tennis ball sized hail that never came, ever came.

This is doable.

But you were prepared.

Well.

Hazards are wonderful.

Gardener okay.

Or one of the gardeners in this place was prepared.

So what this person di was just set up a simple system, went out to a garden cente and purchased some hail netting to drape over it.

This is dual purpose.

Great.

This can also be used in the heat of summer.

I recommend shade cloth on a simple structure.

It's usually 40% light 40 to 50% light from permeable.

Yes, just drape it over some simple stakes.

Preventative.

Very easy to do.

This is something I could do this.

Well, you see, we wan those things that works for you.

However, you and you don't nee to spend a lot of money on it.

I've got some area here which is not only empty, bu which I'm going to ask Erica to.

First of all, in this area use your hands, move the straw.

She knows how to do that really well here, but I will put it back.

Back?

She's going to put it back.

I like it.

And then what we're going to do are two things.

So we're planting.

We're planting more onions.

More onions.

We're putting more onions in here to go along with the few onions we have.

And what will the onions do is the onions are going to smell stronger.

Oh, I love skies.

The smell by which the cabbage.

Butterfly.

Fine.

So we're going to say I'm goin to put the cabbage in the fall.

We would have garlic.

It doesn't need to be really deep.

They're just going to chop.

That's fine.

Continue doing your chop, chop, chop.

Put it in some compost.

Will you please mix that compost in?

Yes.

Like the mixing bowl just will.

What I like to do what you can close, you just pick it up and mix the soil in with the compost.

So yeah.

So we're not.

Yeah.

So hold it in jungle I like the cooking.

So we're folding it in okay.

Absolutely.

Now I have some transplant which were donated this morning.

I will not have that.

We don't have.

No she knows that we don't.

Pettit.

Erica.

We use this daughter or son.

I have both.

Okay.

Tangled hair carefully.

We have tangled hair at the bottom.

Okay, we're going to carefully untangle those roots because we're going to have two bulbs of onions.

So start from the top, carefully pull it apart.

I'm going to.

I don't want to hurt it.

Oh, I know what we're giving it space in between right here.

So I'm pulling in a parquet.

Almost there.

I wasn't doing a damage.

It So this.

Oh, people are afraid.

I need to learn to be okay.

So, Erica, I am going to.

Why don't we go ahead with that?

One is going to go number one.

Really?

Just wanted to put it in.

Now you're going to cover up each bowl okay.

You do him.

Oh.

Flat hand pattern.

Oh okay.

Got it.

Okay.

And about three inches apart o so because we need to get that bowl time okay.

Plac this and we'll have two onions.

Plenty of I'm going t have you use that shovel okay.

And I'm going to have you dig down all around there.

You know the plant can't believe I'm getting a lesson from Jungle Judy herself.

And I would dig down all wide.

I'm going to dig down deeper because we're going to actually plant a tomato plant there.

Do you want me to keep going even deeper than.

I don't know.

Let me sit down, see what you've done.

Okay.

Such good work.

They have the shovel.

Yes.

So I think that's why this is great.

What I want you to do is just the same thing, but a little wider.

Because those roots then.

So dig down just like that.

But just like I'm doing okay, a little bit wider.

Go for it and put it right in the same place so we know where that soil is.

Okay.

Boy, we have a master gardener in.

I'm so just trying here and here.

You know, the routine, what goes in the whole.

The mulch?

Nope.

No quarry close.

You are close.

The, begins with the see.

Oh my gosh.

And with the tree.

Thank you.

Let's start.

You could just use.

You could just dump duty dump dumps, compost in the hole.

Okay.

Are we good right there?

I don't know, dump some compost in the hole.

Just go.

One more handful there and then another handful that you're going to mix in with this stuff.

Okay, so this is what.

But this is why I'm the perfect person.

Because I'm a beginner.

But you know, you're a learner, which I love.

Now that wonderful a spoon.

I'm just going to take a little bit of this.

And this is complete.

This is registered purging.

It's not going to give it a whole bunch of you know, I continue to fill it form here.

I could just mix that in with your hands.

Hey I don't want you to mess with the roots.

I just want you to squeeze this so that the roots are going there, okay?

Just squeeze it.

There's going to go down.

Tomatoes will form roots all on the stem.

So we're going to bury this out.

So you do not break up the roots.

We're going to push all this in see how deep we're putting this in.

A lot deeper than most people will think that this is good.

It's last chanc I would even go for this stuff.

As tomatoes grow, the flowers would produce from the side of the stem in between a branch and this stem.

I can't show you this is so small it tries to come up with another little should call this sucker.

Okay?

If you see suckers every week finish them off or cut them off.

Got it.

Okay, so summer is the perfect time to put your tomatoes.

Well I would like to think call here.

Okay.

But I think that we because it's so hot now and this is a variety that will produce fruit before the end of the season.

We're also saying this is this last chance.

These were so we had the chance.

Yes.

We've got onions in for Repellency and the marigolds which are going to produce pollination.

Good job.

All right.

Punching always water this at the base ever overhead watering.

That's probably why my videos into.

So I'll show you an example before you leave with some diseases coming in because I watered them on top.

Yeah.

Always from the soil.

Those bottom leaves develop diseases first.

They drop on the soil surface.

Just means proliferate.

A lot of what we're talking about is basic plant care.

Optimize the health of the plant.

I love it makes sense.

This was so much fun today.

Thank you for teaching me.

I learned a lot.

Are there any final thoughts that you can leave us with this for about three three days worth of final thoughts, but if I had to say you had to sum it up, I would say please remember that I think people keep the negative antenna up.

A lot of times they say, this didn't work.

This didn't work.

If your journal, your phone take pictures of what you look and realize that a garden is not a competition.

It's not a race.

A garden feeds your soul.

It's for stress relief in addition to food access.

So after these many year of gardening, I vowed one thing.

Each year I'm going to make a different mistake.

I love that I'm great at making mistakes.

Every year I got this.

We're so thankful that you chose to spend time with us in this day.

Learning in peace and reflection.

Awesome.

Thanks, Judy.

Thank you for sharing your your heart.

For more information about Denver Urban Gardens and to find out how you can get involved, go to doug.org.

Thank you for joining us tonight for Colorado Stories on Studio 12.

For more stories, interviews and special programing, visit PBS 12.org or check out our YouTube channel in the PBS app.

I'm bazi kanani and I'm Brian here.

Thanks for joining us.

We'll see you next week.

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