The first smart garden for growing gourmet mushrooms is available for presale

Mushrooms are having a moment. The 2019 film Fantastic Fungi enjoyed a second (and well-deserved) buzz when Netflix picked up the short documentary in late July of this year, and medical mushrooms like reishi and lion’s mane are taking over the wellness narrative. Perhaps General Electric predicted the fungal fever or perhaps it’s dumb luck, but one of GE’s innovation labs FirstBuild just launched an advanced home-grow chamber and cultivation system for edible mushrooms called Mella. It’s available for presale starting today.

Mella is sort of like an AeroGarden for shrooms in that it automates the process by controlling humidity and airflow, creating an optimal environment for fungal fruiting — no daily spritzing required. The system was developed by a group of mycologists, scientists, engineers and mushroom enthusiasts, and has been dubbed the first smart mushroom-fruiting chamber designed specifically for consumers at home. The Mella looks like a large terrarium with a water chamber attached to the side. It’s fitted with a humidifier, air filter, dimmable LED lights and a digital control panel for simple use. Mella can grow fancy gourmet mushrooms for consumption in just a few weeks. A glass window lets you display all that gorgeous mushroom multiplication.

If you preorder a Mella unit now during the crowd-fund phase, you’ll save 27% and get the fruiting chamber for $350. The actual product is expected to ship in the spring of 2022. Purchase of mushroom-fruiting blocks, including spores to grow shiitakes, lion’s mane, king trumpets and chestnuts, will be made available through Mella as well, but pricing for the spore blocks has not yet been released.