Starting my garden

My family just opened up a restaurant in January and i've been slaving away since the day we opened. Working on the central coast is a big change from working in LA. I grew up in templeton but it's been about 4 years since i've lived here. I have a cute cottage on the west side in Paso Robles right downtown. Things have started to ease up at the restaurant and i've had a little extra time to start working on the yard. (I JUST finished unpacking all of my boxes inside....3 months later)
Whoever lived here before me didn't really take of anything outside so i'm slightly starting from scratch.
I'm pretty sure there used to be a lawn but it was completely dead and overgrown with weeds and decaying leaves from the pepper tree.
That tree! The leaves are pretty annoying, they get everywhere. I feel like I sweep outside for 15 minutes and the next day they're all back. I finally got some big shears and cut all the branches that were hanging over the yard. Looks a lot better and there's a lot more sunshine now.

After many debates on which type of planter box I should build I finally decided on redwood fence planks. They were only 4.99 each and they cut them for me at the lumber yard. And with some basic L brackets and a drill, I put together my own planter box. If I can do it, you can do it.

I haven't planted anything yet, but i'm getting the soil ready this weekend and will hopefully have sometime to start planting on monday.

This is basically before I touched anything, so many weeds!

This was a few days after I weeded everything (by hand) and let the ground dry out a little bit.

My finished raised planter box. 

4 Redwood Cedar planks

2 - 4ft

2 - 5 1/2 ft

2 packages of basic L brackets

1 electric drill