Color me jealous, I planted seeds 3x zero have sprouted so it is not looking good.

Jealous here too - I've never grown melons, and I love to eat good sweet ones - congratulations 😃

My honeydews have been a bust. Like Donald I've replanted them 3 times but something in the soil (either a disease or parasites) have killed them off. The regular cantaloupes had similar early growth problems but now seem to be getting their footing ok. It will be a late season for all melons here.

My main problem with melons is animal pests, possums especially. I trap religiously, and lately I cover the melons with buckets with bricks on top, but the critters are sneaky, and kind of clever. I've had one or two buckets knocked over, and melons devoured. They LOVE sweet stuff. Possums have an acute sense of smell (though their eyesight is poor), so when a melon is ripe, they know it, and can zero in on it! By the same token, if on their way to the melons they walk past a trap baited with peanut butter, they know it!

Cucurbits are some of my most successful crops. No insect or disease problems.

you are harvesting them to early they need to ripe to be sweet.

Wrong. The honeydews last year were changing color and they were VERY late. EarliDews tend to slip when ripe, and these last year were slipping. They looked the same last year, but ripened much more timely.

My Honeydews turned into Honeydon'ts

That is a bit puzzling, vgkg, why you're having trouble with honeydews. What variety are you planting? I assume they're in full sun. Disease or parasites would be troubling. Sooty mold is often referred to as a possible problem, but the leaf-blackening symptoms of it are highly recognizable. Do you have problems with other cucurbits?

Yep puzzling indeed Dan. Below is the Ferry Morse brand (site pic) I picked up at Lowe's. No variety is listed on the package. Yep in full sun. No sooty mold here.

https://mobileimages.lowes.com/productimages/e9914a78-7f65-4a6f-bbd9-4737a82bf121/40343365.jpg

Here's some pics from this morning of the Honeydon'ts. They look dry but they have been well watered over weeks but have not progressed at all.

2 Honeydon'ts :

Another Honeydon't

Nearby and treated the same with watering & fert & sun exposure :

Ambrosia, finally getting some good growth :

Sugar Cube, also growing ok now (both are transplants from local nursery)

It's possible that the honeydew seed was contaminated with a viral or fungi infection?

you need to give the soil a serious deep soak the soil looks really dry.

your cantaloupe plant does not look happy

Given that your Ambrosias look good (and yes, they do seem to start very slowly), problems in the same bed with honeydews are very hard to understand. My Ambrosias are filling a 4x8 foot bed, and I have a lot of softball-sized melons. Stunted/shriveling sounds like disease. But in your pictures, the soil around the honeydews does have an odd whitish caste. Are we looking at the same kind of soil?

Yes the soil is uniform in that melon plot, all plants have been treated the same. The overly whitish cast is due to my cheap camera. I've always had good success with seeds from Ferry Morse so this pack of HD seed with no specifices on the variety may just be a fluke and they may possibly be contaminated with a wilt disease of some type. No matter at this point as they have been replaced with watermelon plants. I'll see how those do being planted in the exact same hill. Good to hear that your Ambrosias are doing well, hope they turn out very sweet and tasty for you.