Deduce #21: The allotment — the solution

The Deduce puzzle from September 4, 2026, worked through clue by clue: 6 clues, 3 rounds of crossing off, and no guessing anywhere.

The puzzle

Four people — Iris, Lena, Kit and Ana — and three things to work out about each: their crop, tool and plot. The clues only ever rule things out.

1. Iris is the beans grower.
2. Ana is exactly 3 plots after the one with the trowel.
3. The carrots grower is on a lower plot than Lena.
4. The leeks grower is the one with the fork.
5. Ana is the one with the shears.
6. Kit 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, “Iris is the beans grower”: beans comes off Lena, Kit and Ana. That settles it: Iris’s crop is beans.

Clue 2, “Ana is exactly 3 plots after the one with the trowel”: trowel comes off Ana; plot 2, plot 3 and plot 4 come off Ana. That settles it: Ana is on plot 5.

Clue 3, “The carrots grower is on a lower plot than Lena”: carrots comes off Lena and Ana; plot 2 comes off Lena; plot 5 comes off Kit.

Clue 4, “The leeks grower is the one with the fork”: fork comes off Iris.

Clue 5, “Ana is the one with the shears”: shears comes off Iris, Lena and Kit. That settles it: Ana’s tool is shears.

Clue 6, “Kit is the one on plot 3”: plot 3 comes off Iris and Lena. That settles it: Kit is on plot 3.

Round 2

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

Nobody but Kit can still have carrots, so Kit’s crop is carrots.

plot 5 is Ana’s, so it comes off Iris and Lena. That settles it: Lena is on plot 4.

Nobody but Iris can still have plot 2, so Iris is on plot 2.

Clue 2, “Ana is exactly 3 plots after the one with the trowel”: trowel comes off Lena and Kit.

Clue 4, “The leeks grower is the one with the fork”: leeks comes off Ana; fork comes off Kit. That settles it: Lena’s crop is leeks, Ana’s crop is onions, Lena’s tool is fork and Kit’s tool is spade.

Round 3

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

Spade is Kit’s, so it comes off Iris. That settles it: Iris’s tool is trowel.

The answer

Previous: Deduce #20 (Thu, Sep 3) · Next: Deduce #22 (Sat, Sep 5)

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.