Between towering brick apartment buildings and a bustling train station in Botanical Square, Rem Kim, a thin, lightly-wrinkled man can be seen working in a small community garden. The ground is finally beginning to thaw after an uneven winter, and Kim is getting ready for the spring.

Kim, 62, has been volunteering in the Botanical Square Community Garden for the past three years. Although he speaks limited English, his passion for gardening was immediately apparent upon meeting him. His face lit up when he listed the vegetables that would soon be available to Bronx residents in the latter part of the spring.

“Once it warms up, I [will] grow tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplant, a lot of things. I [can] grow anything I want,” he said. “All along the sidewalk, I am going to grow sunflowers.”

Bronx Green-Up, the community garden outreach program affiliated with The New York Botanical Garden, trains and assists volunteers in roughly 300 community gardens in the Bronx, including the Botanical Square Community Garden. When a gardener needs help, they contact Green-Up to schedule a day where volunteers come to work.

In 2014, Kim approached Bernard Conway, a volunteer who has managed and worked in the community garden since 2007, and asked him if he could help out in the garden. According to Conway, Kim has since created a small farm with a little greenhouse for growing his vegetables.

“People around here, they like [the garden],” said Kim. “Last summer, I gave [vegetables] out every day.”

Kim has also planted flowers along the sidewalk and cleaned up the area behind the garden to make room for more vegetable crops. Beyond gardening, Kim is also known to sweep the sidewalks, pick up garbage, and help Conway in the areas he tends.

“Many of the neighborhood people do appreciate the work he does…” said Conway, in an email. “He is a wonderful person. He would give the shirt off his back to those he knows if they needed it.”

When asked about his inspiration behind his creations, Kim attributed it to his childhood. “When I was with my parents, I grew up on a farm.” he said. “We grew rice, beans and cotton.”

“For a long time I tried to do that here,” he added with a laugh.

Kim grew up in the province of Battambang, Cambodia, before escaping to the Khao-I-Dang refugee camp in Thailand. He moved to the United States in 1985 and has been living in Botanical Square ever since.

Kim was eager to lend his gardening services when the Botanical Square Community Garden was started in 1989, but he was busy supporting his family. According to Kim, things changed when he retired three years ago from his job in a warehouse. His six children had moved out to start families of their own, and he had more free time to work in the garden.

“I got sick. I got a disability, and after I felt better, nobody [wanted to hire me] because I was old,” said Kim. “I’m here. I’m going to still do something. I don’t want to stay still in my house. Time’s running out.”

Kim has dedicated himself to the community garden, going out almost every day and sometimes working from dawn until dusk. Some days he is accompanied by one or more of his five grandchildren. They play beside him in the garden with toy tools he gives them.

Kim talked about his work in the garden with pride, happy to be devoting his time to such a fulfilling hobby. He expressed the most joy when describing the success of his botanical creations.

“I don’t want [the vegetables and other plants]. I just want to grow [them],” he said. “When something comes up good and nice I feel good. I don’t want anything.”

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Welcome to the Norwood News, a bi-weekly community newspaper that primarily serves the northwest Bronx communities of Norwood, Bedford Park, Fordham and University Heights. Through our Breaking Bronx blog, we focus on news and information for those neighborhoods, but aim to cover as much Bronx-related news as possible. Founded in 1988 by Mosholu Preservation Corporation, a not-for-profit affiliate of Montefiore Medical Center, the Norwood News began as a monthly and grew to a bi-weekly in 1994. In September 2003 the paper expanded to cover University Heights and now covers all the neighborhoods of Community District 7. The Norwood News exists to foster communication among citizens and organizations and to be a tool for neighborhood development efforts. The Norwood News runs the Bronx Youth Journalism Heard, a journalism training program for Bronx high school students. As you navigate this website, please let us know if you discover any glitches or if you have any suggestions. We’d love to hear from you. You can send e-mails to norwoodnews@norwoodnews.org or call us anytime (718) 324-4998.