Last fall I planted layers of sunflower seed husks, vegetable pulp, pine needles, and coffee grounds. This weekend I harvested a lovely crop of compost. Some needles remained, but mostly I pitchforked only lovely moist dark crumbly loam into the wheelbarrow to feed Gregor Samsa and add to the soon-to-be new vegetable bed.
Also I pitchforked ants, whom I should probably thank for their work over the winter. The lasagne was alive with black ants. I found out this weekend at the Wild Bird Center when I picked up fourscore pounds of sunflower seeds that flickers can, in nesting season, eat 5,000 ants a day. So don't use ant spray.
And worms! I don't remember, when we rototilled the south garden and south fence two years ago, this many worms (except for that one garter-snake-sized one I named Arrakis). Probably because rototilling kills them. Though I didn't amend the front gardens much, because all the plants I chose I did so deliberately because they thrive best in lean soils, there are worms aplenty in its soil now. I expect that, even unamended, soil under groundcloth and mulch stays moister than soil under dead thatched grass. I hope.