Deduce #8: The allotment — the solution

The Deduce puzzle from August 22, 2026, worked through clue by clue: 6 clues, 4 rounds of crossing off, and no guessing anywhere.

The puzzle

Four people — Ben, Omar, Quinn and Wes — and three things to work out about each: their crop, tool and plot. The clues only ever rule things out.

1. Ben is exactly 3 plots after the onions grower.
2. Ben is the leeks grower.
3. The one with the rake is on a lower plot than Wes.
4. The carrots grower is not the one on plot 3.
5. Omar is the one with the spade.
6. The one with the hoe is the one on plot 3.

The walkthrough

A round is one pass over the clues. Each round applies what the last one settled; every step below is an elimination the clues force, in the order a solver would take them.

Round 1

Start with every possibility open, and take the clues in order.

Clue 1, “Ben is exactly 3 plots after the onions grower”: onions comes off Ben; plot 2, plot 3 and plot 4 come off Ben. That settles it: Ben is on plot 5.

Clue 2, “Ben is the leeks grower”: leeks comes off Omar, Quinn and Wes. That settles it: Ben’s crop is leeks.

Clue 3, “The one with the rake is on a lower plot than Wes”: rake comes off Ben and Wes; plot 2 comes off Wes.

Clue 5, “Omar is the one with the spade”: spade comes off Ben, Quinn and Wes. That settles it: Omar’s tool is spade.

Clue 6, “The one with the hoe is the one on plot 3”: hoe comes off Ben; plot 3 comes off Omar. That settles it: Ben’s tool is fork.

Round 2

Go back over the clues with the new facts in hand.

Fork is Ben’s, so it comes off Quinn and Wes. That settles it: Wes’s tool is hoe.

Hoe is Wes’s, so it comes off Quinn. That settles it: Quinn’s tool is rake.

plot 5 is Ben’s, so it comes off Omar, Quinn and Wes.

Clue 1, “Ben is exactly 3 plots after the onions grower”: onions comes off Wes.

Clue 3, “The one with the rake is on a lower plot than Wes”: plot 4 comes off Quinn.

Clue 6, “The one with the hoe is the one on plot 3”: plot 3 comes off Quinn. That settles it: Quinn is on plot 2 and Wes is on plot 3.

Round 3

Go back over the clues with the new facts in hand.

plot 2 is Quinn’s, so it comes off Omar. That settles it: Omar is on plot 4.

Clue 1, “Ben is exactly 3 plots after the onions grower”: onions comes off Omar.

Clue 4, “The carrots grower is not the one on plot 3”: carrots comes off Wes. That settles it: Wes’s crop is squash.

Round 4

Go back over the clues with the new facts in hand.

Squash is Wes’s, so it comes off Omar and Quinn. That settles it: Omar’s crop is carrots.

Nobody but Quinn can still have onions, so Quinn’s crop is onions.

The answer

Previous: Deduce #7 (Fri, Aug 21) · Next: Deduce #9 (Sun, Aug 23)

About Deduce

Deduce is Noggin’s daily logic grid: four people, three things to work out about each, and clues that never hand you an answer. Every puzzle has exactly one solution and can be finished by crossing off alone. How to play Deduce, or play today’s.