Bird Table on allotments

i'm planting a native hedge around the plot to supply berries and nesting for small birds and a small pond too this winter. how about growing sunflowers too for the seeds.

This is exactly the sort of thing that I want. I can't help but feel from all that I have read, that the best system for growing everything, is one that gets everything in balance. Not an easy feat to achieve I know. But if you want to attract the insects and birds that eat pests you have to tolerate some level of pests. If you have a plot devoid of all pests it will probably also be hostile to all the beneficial creatures that you want, not just to eat the bugs and slugs, but also for pollination etc.
I also think that we are not fully aware of how interdependent everything in nature is and so we should try to encourage as much diversity as possible. For example I was reading a fascinating piece of research the other day, done on corn and cotton crops. They have discovered that the chemical make up of these crops actually changes when they are attacked by caterpillars. These chemical changes (which don't occur if you manually damage the leaves) then attract the caterpillars natural predator.
Nature has many mechanisms in place we are unaware of, thinking of the example above, you would need to have plants growing within a certain distance where the caterpillars predators could live and thus detect those changes.
The more that I read the more complex the whole thing becomes, but I certainly want to encourage as much diversity as I can.

fascinating ann my M-I-L was complaining that she doesn't see thrushes anymore, she uses slug pellets, its all about balance.